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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"> <channel> <title>Center for Inquiry - News & Announcements</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net</link> <description>The latest news and announcements from the CFI home page.</description> <dc:language>en</dc:language> <dc:rights>Copyright 2018</dc:rights> <dc:date>2018-04-03T17:05:53+00:00</dc:date> <item> <title>Richard Dawkins Engages with Science Teachers for Easter/April Fool’s Online Workshop</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/dawkins_april1_webinar/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/dawkins_april1_webinar/#When:17:05Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ What better way to mark the collision of Easter Sunday and April Fool’s Day than with some evolution education? On April 1, CFI’s <a href="https://www.richarddawkins.net/ties/" target="_blank">Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science</a> (TIES) presented the latest in its new series of online workshops for those teachers who are truly in the trenches for science and reason: science teachers. Headlining this special webinar was the founder of TIES himself, our own Richard Dawkins. <img align="right" height="188" hspace="10" src="https://www.centerforinquiry.net/images/photos/Screen_Shot_2018-04-03_at_10913_PM.png" width="250" /> A remote audience of teachers, students, and science education professionals were asked to submit questions, which moderator and TIES director Bertha Vazquez incorporated into the presentation. In response, Richard discussed such topics as the worst misconceptions about evolution, the best ways to define evolution to those who know nothing about it, the best examples of the evidence of evolution, the problem with the term “missing link,” and much more. Richard also recounted how TIES originally came to be. In 2014, after learning about the workshops on evolution curriculum that Bertha had been running for fellow middle school science teachers, Richard offered to come and speak with these teachers. It was then that Bertha was asked to take her work to the national level. TIES became a program of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, now having put on 75 workshops in 33 states. Participants also voted on which of Richard’s favorite animal species they liked best, and we send our congratulations to the night’s big winner, the tardigrade.   ]]></description> <dc:date>2018-04-03T17:05+00:00</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>New Play Based on Non-Believing Clergy Interviews Gets a Professional Staged Reading in Manhattan</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/new_play_based_on_the_clergy_project/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/new_play_based_on_the_clergy_project/#When:16:19Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ Two professional and invitation-only developmental readings took place in Manhattan on March 16 and 17 for a new play about clergy whoo are struggling with their loss of faith, Caught in the Pulpit. Underwritten by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, playwright Marin Gazzaniga‘s script is adapted from conversations and interviews with current and former members of the clergy who no longer believe what they preached. <img align="right" height="162" hspace="10" src="https://www.centerforinquiry.net/images/photos/IMaaG_2907.jpg" width="250" /> These conversations came from a groundbreaking study on non-believing clergy that was undertaken by Linda LaScola and Daniel Dennett through Tufts University, and published in 2010, and later expanded upon in the 2013 book Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind. This sparked the beginnings of the <a href="http://clergyproject.org/">Clergy Project</a>, an organization that supports current and former clergy wrestling with their doubts. <img align="right" height="195" hspace="10" src="https://www.centerforinquiry.net/images/photos/IMG_2901.jpg" width="250" /> The play readings were directed by Steve Cosson, artistic director of The Civilians, a theatre company dedicated to investigative theatre that explores vital social, cultural, and political questions. LaScola and Dennett themselves attended the readings, as well as CFI’s president and CEO, Robyn Blumner. Professional actors were enlisted to play the eight characters plus the reader of the stage directions. Megan Kingery of POE Global was the show’s executive producer. # # # The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit educational, advocacy, and research organization headquartered in Amherst, New York, with executive offices in Washington, D.C. It is also home to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and the Council for Secular Humanism. The Center for Inquiry strives to foster a secular society based on reason, science, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. Visit CFI on the web at www.centerforinquiry.net.   ]]></description> <dc:date>2018-04-03T16:19+00:00</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Embracing Western Values: CFI’s President Reports from the UN Commission on the Status of Women</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/embracing_western_values_uncsw/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/embracing_western_values_uncsw/#When:15:44Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ The 62nd UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) took place in New York from March 12-17, with an agenda focused on empowering rural women and girls. The Center for Inquiry’s president and CEO, Robyn Blumner was there and reported back on this illuminating event. <img align="right" height="222" hspace="15" src="https://www.centerforinquiry.net/images/photos/c85340e8-ce5a-4694-ad57-930148713a5d_copy.jpg" width="299" /> The CSW included more than 8000 representatives from 1121 civil society organizations (NGOs) from around the world, and as best we as can be determined, Robyn was the only person associated with an NGO representing secular people and interests. Official meetings were held in the General Assembly room in which only member state delegations (each individual country’s representatives) participated. Presentations consisted of short statements by country delegations boasting about the progress they have made in advancing the equality and status of rural women and girls. Most countries focused on the advances in education for girls, literacy rates especially in developing countries, and in promoting women’s economic advancement. There was particular attention to closing the digital divide and bringing girls into technology and STEM fields. Robyn found that the most promising aspect of these reports was the embrace of western normative values as a baseline for progress. The right to bodily autonomy and access to reproductive health care, including contraception and abortion rights, were explicitly embraced as a component of women’s equality. Child marriage and female genital mutilation was openly and strongly condemned as harmful. Support was expressed for the rights of lesbians, widows, and other marginalized groups of women. The current United Nations Secretary General, former Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Guterres, addressed the NGOs attending with pointed remarks that demonstrate his interest in and support for these issues. Outside the 18 official meetings (many of which were closed to NGO representatives and only open to country delegations) there were more than 280 side events; public presentations within the United Nations grounds hosted by member states and UN agencies. Off the UN grounds but nearby there were 440 additional parallel events. These are hosted by NGOs. <img align="right" height="199" hspace="15" src="https://www.centerforinquiry.net/images/photos/CnybnyE005016_20180312_NYMFN0A004_11n.jpg" width="299" /> Side events were very well attended, and Robyn often found simply finding a seat challenging, but did manage to attend about a dozen over the week. She specifically sought out any event put on by an Islamic country, including one put on by Saudi Arabia, another by Iran, and one simply titled “Empowering Women and Promoting Gender Justice in the Muslim World.” Speakers at these side events included a Ugandan cabinet minister, an Egyptian ambassador to the United Nations, a physician and women’s rights advocate in Saudi Arabia, and the founder of Islamic Relief Gender Justice Policy. Robyn lauded the progressive faith-based groups and other rights-oriented NGO representatives who boldly challenged the speakers at these side events. For example, a question was posed at the side event put on by Iran asking about the controversy over the hijab. The questioner asked about the protests with women removing their hijabs and suggested if women aren’t empowered to decide for themselves what to wear there cannot be real advancement. “The panelists mainly avoided the question,” reported Robyn. “But they certainly heard it.” Robyn was encouraged to find that there were many such challenges at the Islamic events from questioners who were from those countries and within those faith traditions. “The value of these meetings is that it normalizes progressive values – secular values – as desirable goals for human flourishing and advancement,” Robyn told us, noting that delegations came with reports of measurable educational, economic, and legal progress for women and girls. “During the week I met numerous people involved in this work,” said Robyn. “They were generally delighted to have CFI’s participation.” And CFI is glad to be participating, bringing the too often overlooked secular perspective to these issues of global importance. # # # The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit educational, advocacy, and research organization headquartered in Amherst, New York, with executive offices in Washington, D.C. It is also home to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and the Council for Secular Humanism. The Center for Inquiry strives to foster a secular society based on reason, science, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. Visit CFI on the web at www.centerforinquiry.net. ]]></description> <dc:date>2018-04-03T15:44+00:00</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>CFI Builds Bridges with the California Faith Community</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cfi_builds_bridges_with_the_california_faith_community/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cfi_builds_bridges_with_the_california_faith_community/#When:19:56Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ The Center for Inquiry is many things, but one thing it decidedly is not is a “faith-based organization.” Nonetheless, in representing the interests of skeptics and the nonreligious, it is crucial that CFI and other secularist organizations are fully represented in discussions about the role of religion in public life. After all, the religiously unaffiliated make up almost a quarter of the U.S. population. That’s why CFI was proud to be represented by the executive director of CFI’s west coast operations, Jim Underdown, at an interfaith conference hosted by California Assemblymember Eloise Gomez Reyes on March 10. <img align="right" class="right" height="216" hspace="5" src="https://www.centerforinquiry.net/images/blog_images/jimage004_1.jpg" vspace="5" /> The conference, held at at San Bernardino Valley College, was called <a href="https://a47.asmdc.org/event/20180310-bridge-interfaith-conference">The Bridge</a> and was aimed at “bridging the gap between faith-based organizations, our community, and public officials,” and was the first of its kind in the state. In a plenary session, Jim addressed the entire conference, making the case for a strong secular voice in the political process, despite efforts to exclude us, and he reminded the attendees, “We’re not your enemies … We care about our communities and our country, and we want to participate in the work that will make our neighborhoods, our states, and our country good places to live. But we can’t work together until all of us are included.”   Here is the text of Jim’s address to The Bridge conference in its entirety. <hr /> Good morning.  <img align="right" class="right" height="216" hspace="5" src="https://secure3.convio.net/cfi/images/content/pagebuilder/image005__1_.jpg" vspace="5" width="300" />Thank you, Assemblymember Eloise Reyes for organizing this event and inviting a truly diverse group to attend and participate. In 2010, President Obama said, “this is a country that is still predominantly Christian, but we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and that their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own.” That may have been the first time ever that a sitting president of the United States made an inclusive statement about atheists and agnostics. The Center for Inquiry where I work—a community of pro-science atheists, agnostics and secular humanists—work on a number of issues pertaining to science, extraordinary claims, and secular people both here in California and elsewhere. We’ve been debunking fake news since the 70s. Some items get our attention more than others. We not only represent the 4 million atheists and agnostics in California, but to some degree the 11 million “nones” in this state. NONES not NUNS—The nones I’m talking about mark “none” on surveys when they are asked about their religious affiliation. Imagine me repping nuns? Like putting Ted Nugent in charge of PETA. Why is it important that secular organizations like the Center for Inquiry participate in government like faith-based organizations do? First of all, we think ALL People should participate in the process of government. We are firm believers in the separation of religion and state. But separation of religion and state doesn’t mean that religious people shouldn’t participate in government. It means that the great power of government shouldn’t favor one religion over another, or believers over non-believers. But all Californians—all Americans—should participate in their local, state, and federal governments. We think all Americans—and I include immigrants and permanent residents here—ought to care about what their elected officials are up to, and should have a voice in policies. I gotta tell you… we secular people often feel left out. We feel left out when we see 3500 people attend a National Prayer breakfast and get to eat with Members of Congress and the President of the United States. Not a single atheist was invited. But you say it was a prayer breakfast, why should you get an invitation? Ok, I would buy that if the next month we got the invite to the national science breakfast, the national good without God breakfast, the national evolution breakfast, or the national secular democracy breakfast—except none of those breakfasts exists. So the reality is that 3500 religious folks get access to the most powerful elected officials in the country year after year, and we don’t. The prayer breakfast is just one example. But really, any marginalized group knows how important access to power is. Any Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists here today – any non-Christian really—all know what it feels like to hold a minority belief in the greater American society. The irony with us is that we’re marginalized even though there are millions of us. There are millions of atheists and tens of million of NONES in this country. You’d think politicians would be fighting for a voting bloc that large. Why they don’t is a whole another discussion. I guess what I’m here to say is, we’re not your enemies. I have devoutly religious friends and family that I love and would do anything for—and they for me. We’re your neighbors and friends and co-workers and family members. The vast majority of us of us obey the law, pay our taxes, and care about our fellow human beings as much as any religious person does. We care about our communities and our country, and we want to participate in the work that will make our neighborhoods, our states, and our country good places to live. But we can’t work together until all of us are included. I thank you for the opportunity to speak, and look forward to building more bridges.   ]]></description> <dc:date>2018-03-20T19:56+00:00</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Presenting the ‘Radically’ Redesigned Freethought Trail Website</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/freethought_trail_new_website/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/freethought_trail_new_website/#When:17:27Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ American Freethought History, Newly Experienced Foundational advancements for progress and equality—secularism and freethought, abolitionism and suffrage, and a wide variety of other radical movements—grew and flourished on the same fertile ground in nineteenth-century West-Central New York State. <img align="right" height="341" hspace="5" src="https://secure3.convio.net/cfi/images/content/pagebuilder/Screen_Shot_2018-03-15_at_12.27.42_PM.png" width="250" /> Today, the legacies of such transformational American reformers as Susan B. Anthony, Robert Green Ingersoll, Madelyn Joslyn Gage, Elizabeth Cody Stanton, and Fredrick Douglass are honored, and their stories retold, through the sites that make up the <a href="https://freethought-trail.org">Freethought Trail</a>, a project of the Center for Inquiry’s Council for Secular Humanism. There are of course the real-life sites of the Freethought Trail, the many historical locations throughout West-Central New York such as the <a href="https://freethought-trail.org/trail-map/location:robert-green-ingersoll-birthplace-museum/">Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum</a> and the <a href="https://freethought-trail.org/trail-map/location:womans-rights-national-historical-park/">Women’s Rights National Historical Park</a> in Seneca Falls. The trail has recently expanded to include more than 115 historical sites. But of course “site” has another meaning as well. New for 2018, the website of the Freethought Trail has undergone a major overhaul and redesign. The new <a href="https://freethought-trail.org">Freethought-Trail.org</a> is fresh with gorgeous visuals, simple navigation, and most importantly, a trove of information on the individuals, groups, places, and social movements that made nineteenth-century West-Central New York such a flashpoint of progressivism, radicalism, and reform. <div style="text-align: center"> <img border="0" height="82" hspace="0" src="https://secure3.convio.net/cfi/images/content/pagebuilder/fftppl.png" style="display: block" vspace="0" width="450" /> </div> Deeply researched and painstakingly organized, the new Freethought Trail website is a way to delve deeply into another era, to be enlightened by historical scholarship and surprised by the discovery of facts and stories too seldom told. And there’s a good chance it will inspire a desire to plan a trip up to New York to see these places for yourself. One special opportunity is coming later this year, when the Center for Inquiry holds a conference for the <a href="https://silver.ingersollmuseum.org/">Ingersoll Museum’s Silver Anniversary Celebration</a>, August 18 and 19 in Syracuse, New York. <img alt="trailfft.png" border="0" height="307" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/trailfft.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" width="475" /> Redesign of the Freethought Trail website and the design and publication of a companion brochure for distribution at tourist information centers along the New York Thruway were made possible by a generous grant from the James Hervey Johnson Charitable Educational Trust. <a href="https://freethought-trail.org/"><img alt="freethought trail logo banner email" border="0" height="169" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/FTTlogo.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" width="475" /></a> <hr />   The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit educational, advocacy, and research organization headquartered in Amherst, New York, with executive offices in Washington, D.C. It is also home to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and the Council for Secular Humanism. The Center for Inquiry strives to foster a secular society based on reason, science, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. Visit CFI on the web at www.centerforinquiry.net.  The mission of the Council for Secular Humanism is to advocate and defend a nonreligious lifestance rooted in science, naturalistic philosophy, and humanist ethics and to serve and support adherents of that lifestance. The Council publishes FREE INQUIRY Magazine, operates a national network of affiliated local groups, operates the Ingersoll Museum, and undertakes many other programs of importance to nonreligious men and women.   ]]></description> <dc:date>2018-03-15T17:27+00:00</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Cause &amp; Effect: The CFI Newsletter - No. 100</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_100/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_100/#When:18:12Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ Cause & Effect is the biweekly newsletter of the Center for Inquiry community, covering the wide range of work that you help make possible. <a href="/membership">Become a member today!</a> The Top Stories <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="ddddddd.png" border="0" height="158" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/ddddddd.png" style="float: left" width="170" />Evolution and Activism Celebrated in Darwin Day and Civic Day Events</h4> CFI branches across the country have been celebrating Charles Darwin and his legacy. Two hundred and fifty people turned out to celebrate the life and legacy of Charles Darwin for CFI Austin’s annual Darwin Day event. The full day of presentations and activities included expert presentations on human evolution and adaptation as well as talks on primates, insects, biospheres, and even Darwin’s ideas as represented in the movie Avatar. Grown-ups also had the chance to show off their highly evolved brains with a trivia contest. <img align="right" alt="wwwwww.png" border="0" height="144" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/wwwwww.png" width="170" />Kids probably had the best time of all, taking part in a fossil dig, a build-a-dino workshop, some useful training in how to walk like a dinosaur, microscopic looks at tiny creatures, arts and crafts, storytelling, and much more. And let’s not forget the cutting of the all-important birthday cake. Alas, Darwin isn’t around to enjoy it, so the kids happily took on that responsibility for him. Attendees at CFI Tampa Bay‘s 16th Annual Darwin Day were engrossed by sociologist Jennifer Hancock, who discussed a key pillar of humanism: developing happiness in our lives. Secularism scholar Phil Zuckerman talked about his study of the secular populations of Nordic nations and how they are far happier and content than Americans overall, all without religion. Sociologist and professor Ryan Cragun served as master of ceremonies. CFI Northeast Ohio held two events: in Cleveland they screened a selection of videos on evolution, and in Stow they heard a presentation from Lee Hall of Cleveland Museum of Natural History on sauropod dinosaurs. CFI Michigan heard a lecture on “Darwin and the soul” from Mark Reimers, Professor of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering at Michigan State University. <img align="right" alt="28055929_1672300549492875_7758064372549227596_n.jpg" border="0" height="162" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/28055929_1672300549492875_7758064372549227596_n.jpg" width="170" />The Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Studies also took part in the Darwin Day festivities. In a separate event in Tampa, Florida, TIES held a workshop for 45 teachers, facilitated by Kenny Coogan. In addition to Darwin Day activities, just last weekend TIES director Bertha Vazquez delivered a presentation on the program—“Evolution Education: A Success Story”— for the Central Florida Freethought Community. TIES also broke new ground with its first workshop in the state of Indiana at the Indiana Science Teachers Annual Conference in Indianapolis. Speaking of Indiana, dire weather forecasts, slick roads, delayed flights, and rampant flu viruses could not stop CFI Indiana from carrying forward with its annual Civic Day, which boasted a truly impressive lineup of leaders, activists, and scholars, all with a mind to prepare attendees to make positive change in policy. (Don’t worry, the people with the flu stayed home.) <img align="right" alt="Rima.jpg" border="0" height="151" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Rima.jpg" width="170" />Held at the Indiana State Library, attendees of the event heard from experts representing organizations such as the ACLU of Indiana, Women4Change Indiana, the Hoosier Environmental Council, Indiana Coalition for Public Education, and more, as well as CFI’s own legal director, Nick Little. After the presentations, folks headed to CFI Indiana’s headquarters for food and fellowship. Nature threw a lot at Civic Day 2018, but thankfully a truly meaningful and enlightening time was had by all.   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="sesssssssions.jpg" border="0" height="172" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/sesssssssions.jpg" style="float: left" width="170" />Privileging Religion By Any Means</h4> Amid the great tragedies and scandals of recent weeks, the Trump administration and its allies in Congress have gone under the radar to launch a flurry of new attacks on secular government by defending religiously based discrimination, taking cynical advantage of disasters, and undermining children’s education. Here are some of the issues CFI has been working on in February: Religious Right Watchdogs at the DOJ: Earlier this month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions established a new policy requiring each U.S. Attorney’s office to assign a staffer to monitor all cases involving “religious liberty,” which is code for those instances when a religious individual or organization wants the freedom to discriminate against anyone who does not conform to their beliefs. Career attorneys are instructed to bring these cases to political appointees so they can advance their agenda of privileging religious belief over equality and rule of law. If a business refuses service to LGBTQ Americans, if women seeking contraceptive services are turned away, or a transgender person is denied the use of a public bathroom, the Justice Department will defend those responsible for the discrimination in the name of religious liberty. “All Americans, including those of all faiths and those of no faith, should be able to rely on fair treatment from the Department of Justice,” said CFI Legal Director <a href="/newsroom/sessions_watchdogs/">Nick Little in our statement</a>. “By this policy, Jeff Sessions has handed the keys to his Department to the religious Right.” <img align="right" alt="pennnnnnce.jpg" border="0" height="163" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/pennnnnnce.jpg" width="170" />Passing the Collection Plate to FEMA: To aid in rebuilding after hurricanes and wildfires caused incredible damage in several states, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides grants to private facilities that perform essential social services for the general public, such as community centers, homeless shelters, and senior citizen centers. But in its Bipartisan Budget Agreement, the U.S. Senate has declared “houses of worship” to be eligible for FEMA grants as well, allowing churches to use taxpayer dollars to improve their facilities. “Houses of worship are already eligible to get government grants to cover damages incurred when serving their community,” CFI Director of Government Affairs <a href="/newsroom/fema_churches_senate/">Jason Lemieux pointed out</a>. “If churches want protection against damage from natural disasters, that’s what insurance is for.” Jason was cited in Emma Green’s article on this issue <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/fema-funding-churches/552941/">for The Atlantic</a>. Public Funds for Private Indoctrination: Also stuffed into the Senate’s budget bill was a provision that would siphon taxpayer money away from public schools receiving disaster relief and into a school voucher scheme, diverting $2.7 billion in badly needed public funds toward private schools, the vast majority of which are religious. <a href="/newsroom/cfi_calls_out_underhanded_voucher_scheme_in_bipartisan_budget_bill/">Jason Lemieux called out the Senate</a> for “[using] disaster relief as a cover to divert taxpayer money to vouchers for religious schools that can discriminate against LGBTQ, disabled, and nonreligious children.” Days later, the White House followed suit. In its 2019 budget request, the Trump administration seeks to allot $1 billion in taxpayer funds for voucher programs—four times the amount requested in the previous year. <a href="/newsroom/wh_voucher_plan/">CFI spoke out</a> against the funding of schools that are free to discriminate. “This administration is falling over itself to please the religious Right,” said CFI’s president and CEO, Robyn Blumner, “and this time it is to encourage parents to remove their children from pluralistic and secular public schools to enroll them instead in schools designed to indoctrinate children into religious beliefs.”   <h4>CFI Highlights on the Web</h4> <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <img align="left" alt="hurston-500x0aaaa.jpg" border="0" height="163" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/hurston-500x0aaaa.jpg" width="170" />February is Black History Month, the perfect opportunity to learn more about African Americans throughout history whose humanism and skepticism not only helped establish the foundations of our secularist movement, but fought for and inspired monumental progress for civil and human rights, science, and the arts. Take the time to visit <a href="http://www.aahumanism.net/history">CFI’s African Americans for Humanism website</a>, and rediscover some of these pivotal historical figures, such as Frederick Douglass, anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, poets and novelists James Baldwin and Langston Hughes, actress Butterfly McQueen, and others. New on CFI’s Reasonable Talk video series: <img align="right" alt="Screen-Shot-2018-02-16-at-12.28.31-PM.png" border="0" height="185" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Screen-Shot-2018-02-16-at-12.28.31-PM.png" width="170" />Ross Blocher is cohost with Carrie Poppy of the Oh No, Ross and Carrie! podcast. In his <a href="https://reasonabletalk.tv/planting-more-seeds-than-flags/">CSICon 2017 presentation</a>, Blocher explains how his experiences with believers of all stripes taught him that the best way to make progress for reason is to prioritize friendship and understanding with those who don’t think like us. Also from CSICon 2017, <a href="https://reasonabletalk.tv/a-skeptic-in-the-european-parliament/">Teresa Giménez Barbat</a>, a member of the European Parliament, discusses her efforts to denounce pseudoscience and defend a secular society, as well as her theories about how secularism is the keystone for peaceful coexistence among people of varying beliefs. Skeptical Inquirer, CSICOP.org, and more From Skeptical Inquirer’s important recent issue on racism, Sam Scott <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/a_hard_look_at_how_we_see_race">profiles the work Jennifer Eberhardt</a> whose groundbreaking research has revealed “the long, pernicious reach of unconscious racial bias,” and psychology professor Terence Hines looks at the pseudoscience upon which <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/are_racist_beliefs_pseudoscientific_and_what_do_we_do_about_them">white supremacists hang their pointy hoods</a> and tells us why talking them out of their racism is so difficult. Harriet Hall wants you to know that despite some spooking from the media, <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/copper_bracelets_and_moscow_mules_will_copper_heal_you_or_kill_you">copper won’t kill you</a>, whether it be in bracelet form or as a mug for your beverage. One take-home lesson: “Copper is good for you in small amounts but bad for you in large amounts. (Which is true of a great many things, even water.)” <img align="right" alt="9lW75QaaaNF.jpg" border="0" height="178" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/9lW75QaaaNF.jpg" width="170" />Jonathan Jarry brings more CSICon video interviews, this time with <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/an_interview_with_grant_ritchey_at_csicon">“skeptical dentist” Grant Richey</a>, who takes on dental pseudoscience, and <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/an_interview_with_joe_nickell_at_csicon">CFI’s own super-investigator Joe Nickell</a>. Plus, check out <a href="/blogs/entry/winchester_a_nickell-odeon_review/">Joe’s review of the film Winchester</a>. (It doesn’t fare well.) Commander-in-chief of the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project, Susan Gerbic, chronicled her month-long skeptic’s journey through Europe…in a five-part series! Here are parts <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/skeptical_adventures_in_europe_part_1">one</a>, <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/skeptical_adventures_in_europe_part_2">two</a>, <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/skeptical_adventures_in_europe_part_3">three</a>, and <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/skeptical_adventures_in_europe_part_4">four</a>, and part five is coming soon. At Free Thinking, Ben Radford says that the <a href="/blogs/entry/50_shades_of…_fear/">pearl-clutching over the Fifty Shades movies</a>, and claims that they are somehow dangerous to society (for reasons other than being terrible movies), are insufficiently warranted and fail to give women enough credit for being able to distinguish between reality and fiction.   Upcoming CFI Events <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> CFI National <ul> <li>March 8: Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Studies (TIES) <a href="https://events-na1.adobeconnect.com/content/connect/c1/2416380260/en/events/event/shared/default_template_simple/event_landing.html?sco-id=2442206334">online workshop</a>, with John Mead discussing the discovery of the species Homo naledi. </li> </ul> <ul> <li>March 16: TIES webinar with <a href="https://events-na1.adobeconnect.com/content/connect/c1/2416380260/en/events/event/shared/default_template/event_landing.html?sco-id=2432988001&_charset_=utf-8">Kathleen McAuliffe</a>, author of This is Your Brain on Parasites.</li> </ul> <img align="right" alt="Screen Shot 2018-02-21 at 1.01.43 PM.png" border="0" height="161" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Screen_Shot_2018-02-21_at_1.01.43_PM.png" width="170" />CFI Austin <ul> <li>March 4: Comic-musician <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/247261137/">Roy Zimmerman</a> performs his “ReZist” show.</li> <li>March 19: David Fitzgerald discusses the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/246683477/">historicity of Jesus</a>.</li> </ul> CFI Indiana <ul> <li>March 18: The first of a three-part event <a href="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/MessageViewer?current=true&em_id=66274.0">celebrating the 200th anniversary</a> of Mary Shelley’s original novel Frankenstein.</li> <li>March 27: Discussion on <a href="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/MessageViewer?current=true&em_id=66275.0">Frankenstein and today’s technologies</a> such as artificial intelligence, cloning, and genetic modification. Panelists include Indiana University health and humanities professor Emily Beckman, Saint Louis University ethics professor Jason Aberl, and Rufus Cochran of the Indiana Science Communication and Education Foundation.</li> </ul> CFI Los Angeles <ul> <li>March 4: Take a <a href="/la/events/take_a_tour_of_the_new_cfi_west/">tour of CFI L.A.’s new facilities</a> and learn about the planned improvements. </li> </ul> <img align="right" alt="aaMOSI-The-Saunders-Planetarium-300x200.jpg" border="0" height="147" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/aaMOSI-The-Saunders-Planetarium-300x200.jpg" width="170" />CFI Tampa Bay <ul> <li>February 24: Experts at the Museum of Science & Industry (MOSI) guide an <a href="https://www.meetup.com/CFI-Tampa-Bay/events/246752281/">exploration of the stars</a> in a SkyWatch event. </li> </ul> <ul> <li>March 8: Robert A. Levy of the Cato Institute <a href="https://www.meetup.com/CFI-Tampa-Bay/events/247865136/">debates</a> James Michael Shaw, Jr. of the Greater Tampa Chapter of the ACLU on the Supreme Court case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.</li> </ul> CFI Western New York <ul> <li>February 23: University at Buffalo psychology professor Ken DeMarree discusses the <a href="/wny/events/lecture_can_mindfulness_free_you_from_your_own_feelings/">science behind the mindfulness movement</a>.</li> </ul>   Thank you! <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" />   Everything we do at CFI is made possible by you and your support. Let’s keep working together for science, reason, and secular values. <a href="/support">Donate today!</a> <img align="right" alt="CFI Logo Mark" border="0" height="137" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/CFI-mark.jpg" vspace="15" width="150" />Fortnightly updates not enough? Of course they’re not.        •  Follow CFI on <a href="http://twitter.com/center4inquiry">Twitter</a>.        •  Like us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/centerforinquiry">Facebook</a>.         •  Encircle us on <a href="https://plus.google.com/+CenterforinquiryNet">Google+</a>.         •  Subscribe to us on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/centerforinquiry">YouTube</a>. <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" />   Cause & Effect: The Center for Inquiry Newsletter is edited by Paul Fidalgo, Center for Inquiry communications director.  The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit educational, advocacy, and research organization headquartered in Amherst, New York, with executive offices in Washington, D.C. It is also home to both the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. The mission of CFI is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. Visit CFI on the web at www.centerforinquiry.net.  <div> </div> <div> </div>   ]]></description> <dc:date>2018-02-21T18:12+00:00</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Cause &amp; Effect: The CFI Newsletter - No. 99</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_99/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_99/#When:18:16Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ Cause & Effect is the biweekly newsletter of the Center for Inquiry community, covering the wide range of work that you help make possible. <a href="/membership">Become a member today!</a>   The Top Stories <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="IMG_2411.jpg" border="0" height="133" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/IMG_2411.jpg" style="float: left" width="170" />Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Elects Six New Fellows</h4> To be elected into a group that includes (or has included) such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Francis Crick, Jill Tarter, Eugenie Scott, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan, and Carl Sagan is no small accomplishment, and six new scientists, scholars, and communicators have been elected to do just that. Six new fellows have been elected to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a program of the Center for Inquiry. CSI fellows are elected for their distinguished service to science and skepticism, serving as advisors to CSI and its magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, and are invited to share their expertise and advice on the program’s issues and projects. Fellows are nominated and elected by CSI’s twelve-member Executive Council, and elections take place every several years. This latest class of Fellows, elected at the end of 2017, are ready to be announced, and they include a mentalist, an expert on mass delusions, a “guerilla skeptic,” a GMO scientist, the editor of a UK skeptics’ magazine, and one of the world’s most respected climate scientists: <ul> <li><img align="right" alt="Banachek-0870.jpg" border="0" height="107" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Banachek-0870.jpg" width="100" />Banachek (aka Steve Shaw), a <a href="http://www.banachek.com/">professional magician</a> and mentalist who has collaborated with James Randi, Criss Angel, and Penn and Teller, has performed on over 225 TV episodes and over 300 radio programs. He directed the James Randi Educational Foundation’s Million Dollar Challenge, has been the International Magicians Society Mentalist of the year and twice been APCA College Entertainer of the year.</li> </ul> <ul> <li><img align="right" alt="aRobert Photo WGN e.jpg" border="0" height="112" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/aRobert_Photo_WGN_e.jpg" width="100" />Robert Bartholomew, introduced to <a href="/news/cause_effect_95/">Cause & Effect</a> readers in December, is a sociologist and investigative journalist, currently teaching history at Botany College in Auckland, New Zealand. He has earned the respect of the skeptic community through his sociological studies on mass hysteria, moral panics, social delusions, folklore, and the paranormal. He is the author of many books, including American Hauntings: True Stories Behind Hollywood’s Scariest Movies (2015, with CSI’s Joe Nickell), Mass Hysteria in Schools: A Worldwide History Since 1566 (2014), The Martians Have Landed: A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes (2012, with CSI’s Benjamin Radford), and the forthcoming American Intolerance: Our Dark History of Demonizing Immigrants (2018), among many others.</li> </ul> <ul> <li><img align="right" alt="kfpicfrommontreal.JPG" border="0" height="104" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/kfpicfrommontreal.jpg" width="100" />Kevin Folta is professor and chairman of the Horticultural Sciences Department at the University of Florida, is a leading voice for the evidence-based risks and benefits of genetic engineering in crops and medicine, and a defender against misinformation in food, farming, and other areas of science. He led the project to sequence the strawberry genome; trains scientists, students, farmers, and others in science communication; and hosts the evidence-based podcast <a href="http://www.talkingbiotechpodcast.com/">Talking Biotech</a>.</li> </ul> <ul> <li><img align="right" alt="aGerbic, Susan.jpg" border="0" height="108" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/aGerbic__Susan.jpg" width="100" />Susan Gerbic is founder and leader of the <a href="http://guerrillaskepticismonwikipedia.blogspot.com/">Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia</a> (GSoW) project (as well as the most comprehensive <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/archive/category/csicon">interviewer of CSICon speakers</a>). The GSoW project has made a major contribution to the skeptic movement by ensuring that skepticism-related Wikipedia articles on topics, claims, and individual scientists/skeptics are accurate, thorough, and well cited. She has recruited and trained a large international group of Wikipedia editors knowledgeable about scientific skepticism and skeptical topics. She is also cofounder of Monterey County Skeptics and a frequent contributor to Skeptical Inquirer.</li> </ul> <ul> <li><img align="right" alt="DeborahHyde.jpg" border="0" height="109" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/DeborahHyde.jpg" width="100" />Deborah Hyde is a folklorist, cultural anthropologist, and editor in chief of the UK-based magazine <a href="https://www.skeptic.org.uk/">The Skeptic</a>. She writes and lectures extensively about superstition, cryptozoology, religion, and belief in the paranormal with special regard to the folklore, psychology, and sociology behind these phenomena. She introduced the Ockham Awards to reward successful skeptical activism and recently added the “Rusty Razor” award for the worst bit of pseudoscience of the year (won by Goop, of course). These awards have become a standard part of the QED annual conference in Manchester, U.K., and attract a great deal of media attention.</li> </ul> <ul> <li><img align="right" alt="AAUP_June2011.jpg" border="0" height="111" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/AAUP_June2011.jpg" width="100" />Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and director of the Earth Systems Sciences Center at the Pennsylvania State University. He is likely best known for introducing the visual conceptualization of the progress of climate change with the famous “hockey stick” chart, for which he has become a prime target of science deniers. He is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications, as well as author of three books: The Madhouse Effect (2016, with cartoonist Tom Toles), The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars (2012), and Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming (2008). He has been a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments of climate science. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. </li> </ul> Congratulations and welcome to our new fellows! The full list of CSI fellows can be found on the inside cover of each issue of Skeptical Inquirer and <a href="https://www.csicop.org/about/csi_fellows_and_staff">on the CSI website</a>.   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="104950720-GettyImages-71650006.530x298.jpg" border="0" height="227" hspace="15" src="https://meltwater-apps-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/images/57c07d52840b002ca12a49df/blobid1_1516984390360.jpg" style="float: left" width="170" />TIES Launches First Online Workshops</h4> The <a href="https://www.richarddawkins.net/ties/">Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science</a> (TIES) is a truly groundbreaking program, providing middle school science teachers with the training and resources they need to feel confident and fully informed when teaching evolution, helping to spark a love of science in students. Now with thirty-five presenters, TIES has held seventy-five training workshops for middle school teachers in thirty-one states and provides free educational resources on its website. But for all the teachers who have benefited from the program so far, not everyone can be in the same place at the same time. Last week, TIES took a huge step toward making this invaluable program available to teachers regardless of geography with the first of its online training workshops. The first webinar, “Evolution for Educators,” provided science teachers, homeschooling parents, and other curious participants with some of the most up-to-date concepts of natural selection, common ancestry, and diversity in order for them to confidently cover the topics in their classrooms and fulfill their curriculum requirements. It was facilitated by TIES Director Bertha Vazquez, herself a Miami-area middle school science teacher, who was recently honored with the Evolution Education Award by the National Association of Biology Teachers. <img align="right" alt="wwwUnttiesitled2.png" border="0" height="176" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/wwwUnttiesitled2.png" width="250" />The next evening, TIES presented a special webinar featuring Michael Ryan, Clark Hubbs Regents Professor in Zoology at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of A Taste for the Beautiful: Evolution by Attraction. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Dr. Ryan discussed the astonishing story of how the female brain drives the evolution of beauty in animals and humans. Initial feedback on these two online sessions has been extremely positive. Stay tuned because this is just the beginning.   <h4>CFI Highlights on the Web</h4> <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <img align="right" alt="abenedictine.jpg" border="0" height="178" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/abenedictine.jpg" width="170" />In The Atlantic, Isabel Fattal reports on the development of the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/how-should-atheism-be-taught/551885/">new atheism studies program</a> at the University of Miami—brought into existence by freethinking philanthropist Louis Appignani—to be chaired by current Notre Dame philosophy of science professor Anjan Chakravartty. <a href="https://reasonabletalk.tv/why-do-people-reject-good-science/">Eugenie Scott’s full CSICon 2017 talk</a> is now up on <a href="https://reasonabletalk.tv/">Reasonable Talk</a>, CFI’s video series featuring the best presentations from CFI events, in which she discusses why it is that people disregard science and facts when they challenge their existing beliefs. Also on Reasonable Talk, veteran skeptic <a href="https://reasonabletalk.tv/the-challenge-of-separating-sense-from-nonsense/">Joe Schwarcz</a>, director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society, talks about four decades of experiences from his life and the moments that led him to become the celebrated skeptic and science communicator we know today. At CFI’s Free Thinking blog, Benjamin Radford explains the many, many things that are wrong with the attempts made by the “ghost hunters” on the Discovery Channel’s Ghost Lab to get a <a href="/blogs/entry/wild_bill_hickok_speaks_from_the_grave_to_the_stars_of_ghost_lab._or_not/">recording of Wild Bill Hickok’s restless spirit</a>. <img align="right" alt="256px-Scott_2014.jpg" border="0" height="178" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/256px-Scott_2014.jpg" width="170" />Great new video and articles at CSICOP.org: <ul> <li>Jonathan Jarry from the McGill Office for Science and Society brings two new video interviews with speakers from CSICon 2017 in Las Vegas: <ul> <li><a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/an_interview_with_eugenie_scott_at_csicon">Eugenie Scott</a> discusses public attitudes toward science and what skeptics can do to improve the situation.</li> <li><a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/an_interview_with_alison_bernstein_at_csicon">Alison Bernstein</a>, a professor of translational science and molecular medicine, is one of the reality-based parents featured in the new <a href="http://www.sciencemomsdoc.com/">Science Moms</a> documentary, and she talks about the ways mothers are targeted with pseudoscience that preys on their fears. </li> </ul> </li> <li>Stuart Vyse looks back on the work of the transformative <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/william_james_and_the_psychics">psychologist William James</a>, whose fascination with the spiritual lead him to research the claims of psychics and a search for a “third way” between belief and skepticism.</li> <li>For Skeptical Briefs, Sharon Hill dismantles the “sciencey-sounding” concept known as <a href="https://www.csicop.org/sb/show/spooky_rocks">“stone tape theory,”</a> in which the bedrock of a building is said to “record” the spiritual energy of hauntings or traumatic events. (Perhaps William James would have liked to have looked into this.)</li> <li>Joe Nickell investigates <a href="https://www.csicop.org/sb/show/tallahassees_witchs_grave">the claims of a “witch’s grave”</a> in Tallahassee, and he really has no patience for the slandering of a dead woman’s memory. “Everything we know of Bessie Graham speaks of the tragically brief life of a very good woman.”</li> <li>Plus, Buffalo Rising touts the February 7 appearance of Joe as he <a href="https://www.buffalorising.com/2018/01/science-art-cabaret-investigating-paranormal-mysteries/">headlines the University at Buffalo’s Science & Art Cabaret</a>, discussing his investigations of the paranormal.</li> </ul> And of course, you can keep up with news relevant to skeptics and seculars every weekday with <a href="/blogs/pfidalgo">The Morning Heresy.</a> Upcoming CFI Events <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <img align="right" alt="4329416604_4937d7233f.jpg" border="0" height="254" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/4329416604_4937d7233f.jpg" width="170" />CFI Austin <ul> <li>February 10: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/245659029/">Darwin Day 2018</a> with keynote presentations, kids’ science activities, and more. </li> <li>March 4: Comic-musician <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/247261137/">Roy Zimmerman</a> performs his “ReZist” show. </li> <li>March 19: David Fitzgerald discusses the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/246683477/">historicity of Jesus</a>.</li> </ul> CFI Indiana <ul> <li>February 10: <a href="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/MessageViewer?current=true&em_id=66310.0">8th Annual Civic Day</a> with CFI’s Nick Little, Terri Jett from the ACLU of Indiana, Rima Shahid of Women4Change Indiana, and many more. </li> <li>March 18: The first of a three-part event <a href="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/MessageViewer?current=true&em_id=66274.0">celebrating the 200th anniversary</a> of Mary Shelley’s original novel Frankenstein. </li> <li>March 27: Discussion on <a href="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/MessageViewer?current=true&em_id=66275.0">Frankenstein and today’s technologies</a> such as artificial intelligence, cloning, and genetic modification. Panelists include Indiana University health and humanities professor Emily Beckman, Saint Louis University ethics professor Jason Aberl, and Rufus Cochran of the Indiana Science Communication and Education Foundation.</li> </ul> CFI Michigan <ul> <li>February 9: <a href="http://www.cfimichigan.org/events/event/w-darwin-social-020918/">Darwin Day movie night</a> and potluck dinner. </li> <li>February 14: Michigan State University professor of neuroscience Mark Reimers discusses <a href="http://www.cfimichigan.org/events/event/w-lecture-021418/">“Darwin and the Soul”</a> for Darwin Day.</li> </ul> CFI Portland <ul> <li>February 11: CFI Portland board member and biologist Jon Peters speaks at the Southminster Presbyterian Church about <a href="https://cfiportland.org/event/international-darwin-day-whale-evolution-talk/">the evolution of whales</a> for Darwin Day.</li> </ul> CFI Tampa Bay <ul> <li>February 24: Experts at the Museum of Science & Industry (MOSI) guide an <a href="https://www.meetup.com/CFI-Tampa-Bay/events/246752281/">exploration of the stars</a> in a SkyWatch event.</li> </ul> CFI Western New York <ul> <li>February 23: University at Buffalo psychology professor Ken DeMarree discusses the <a href="/wny/events/lecture_can_mindfulness_free_you_from_your_own_feelings/">science behind the mindfulness movement</a>.</li> </ul>   Thank you! <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" />   Everything we do at CFI is made possible by you and your support. Let’s keep working together for science, reason, and secular values. <a href="/support">Donate today!</a> <img align="right" alt="CFI Logo Mark" border="0" height="137" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/CFI-mark.jpg" vspace="15" width="150" />Fortnightly updates not enough? Of course they’re not.        •  Follow CFI on <a href="http://twitter.com/center4inquiry">Twitter</a>.        •  Like us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/centerforinquiry">Facebook</a>.         •  Encircle us on <a href="https://plus.google.com/+CenterforinquiryNet">Google+</a>.         •  Subscribe to us on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/centerforinquiry">YouTube</a>. <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> Cause & Effect: The Center for Inquiry Newsletter is edited by Paul Fidalgo, Center for Inquiry communications director.  The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit educational, advocacy, and research organization headquartered in Amherst, New York, with executive offices in Washington, D.C. It is also home to both the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. The mission of CFI is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. Visit CFI on the web at www.centerforinquiry.net.    ]]></description> <dc:date>2018-02-07T18:16+00:00</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Cause &amp; Effect: The CFI Newsletter - No. 98</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_98/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_98/#When:15:57Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ Cause & Effect is the biweekly newsletter of the Center for Inquiry community, covering the wide range of work that you help make possible. <a href="/membership">Become a member today!</a> The Top Stories <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="lead_96a0.jpg" border="0" height="179" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/lead_96a0.jpg" style="float: left" width="170" />The Atlantic Magazine Profiles CFI’s Secular Rescue</h4> This week, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/the-underground-railroad-to-save-atheists/550229/">The Atlantic introduced the world</a> to a Center for Inquiry program that exemplifies our commitment to free inquiry and humanist values: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/the-underground-railroad-to-save-atheists/550229/">Secular Rescue</a>. As we have seen far too many times, to be an outspoken atheist in certain parts of the world is to put your life at risk. With Secular Rescue, we assist freethinking writers and activists whose lives are in danger by helping them relocate to safety. Dozens of individuals have been saved through Secular Rescue, relocated from countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Iraq, and now living safely and free to continue to shine the light of reason. Writing for The Atlantic, David Robson spoke to CFI staff, academics and experts, and most importantly, one of the people who has been helped by Secular Rescue, the remarkable Lubna Yaseen. Targeted for her defiance of religion and the subjugation of women, militants in her conservative Iraq community threatened her life. “I disappeared—I left everything. I had to be always on the run, changing places and disguises,” she told The Atlantic. “I couldn’t feel anything except that I would end up being killed.” Writes Robson, “Yaseen would still be at risk if it weren’t for the actions of Secular Rescue.” Lubna goes into greater depth about her journey in her piece for Free Inquiry, <a href="https://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/articles/9670">“Resisting Radical Islam: My Escape to Freedom,”</a> now available free online. In the Atlantic article, Robyn Blumner, president and CEO of CFI, likens Secular Rescue to “an underground railroad for atheists,” from which the piece derives its title. Robyn acknowledges the inherent challenge in rallying support to the cause of saving atheists. “Part of the problem is that people don’t like atheists and it’s hard to protect a group you don’t like.” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/the-underground-railroad-to-save-atheists/550229/">Read the whole article here</a>, and share it with your friends and social networks. Hopefully, it will awaken many more people to this crisis, and they will recognize that this kind of violence and persecution toward any group is unacceptable. Whether you like them or not.   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="104950720-GettyImages-71650006.530x298.jpg" border="0" height="192" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/104950720-GettyImages-71650006.530x298.jpg" style="float: left" width="170" />HHS “Religious Freedom Division” Is a Health and Human Disservice</h4> In Donald Trump’s version of the Environmental Protection Agency, administrator Scott Pruitt sees to it that the agency does anything but protect the environment. It follows, then, that the Trump Administration would find a way to make it so that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) takes steps to prevent humans from receiving health services, and as is so often the case, the magic words used to justify this reversal are “religious liberty.” Last week, it was reported that the HHS’s Office of Civil Rights would <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2018/01/19/hhs-takes-major-actions-protect-conscience-rights-and-life.html">create a “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division,”</a> which will defend the religious privilege of health care providers who claim their beliefs conflict with particular procedures or categories of care, including but not limited to abortions and sex-reassignment surgery. Instead of protecting the civil rights of people to receive health care, this division will protect the civil rights of beliefs in order to stop people from receiving health care. CFI Director of Government Affairs Jason Lemieux said <a href="/newsroom/hhs_religious_freedom_division_robs_americans_of_their_right_to_safe_and_se/">in our statement</a> that this office represents “an abdication of the department’s vital responsibility to the health of all Americans, placing the dogmatic beliefs of a few above the health and lives of the people they serve.” Nick Little, CFI’s vice president and legal counsel, said, “Religious beliefs do not need the protection of the HHS and its Civil Rights Division. It is Americans’ fundamental civil right to safe and secular health care that needs the protection of the HHS.”   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="brittttttt.png" border="0" height="183" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/brittttttt.png" width="170" />A New Season of Reason with Reasonable Talk</h4> CFI’s <a href="http://reasonabletalk.tv">Reasonable Talk</a>, our video series showcasing the best of CFI’s conferences and events, is back for a fifth season, starting with three great talks from CSICon 2017 in Las Vegas. First, academic psychologist Rob Brotherton delves into <a href="https://reasonabletalk.tv/2018/01/05/suspicious-minds/">the mind of the conspiracy theorist</a>, exploring what has only recently been learned about “suspicious minds” and how all of us might be wired to believe in them. Britt Marie Hermes is a former naturopath who is <a href="https://reasonabletalk.tv/2018/01/12/the-bloody-work-of-naturopathic-doctors/">now a whistleblower</a> against the unscientific, unregulated, and unsafe practices of the naturopathic profession. As Hermes explains, while many naturopathic doctors (NDs) practice without any kind of licensure, it’s the officially sanctioned NDs that may be the most dangerous. The <a href="https://reasonabletalk.tv/2018/01/19/genetic-engineering-of-plants-and-animals/">genetic engineering of plants and animals</a> can address some of the most pressing problems faced by people all over the world, providing food and medicine through sustainable means. But as we learn from Kevin Folta, this needs to be communicated to the broader public in order to tamp down the irrational and destructive fears people have of the dreaded acronym “GMO.” You can also check out video interviews with both <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/an_interview_with_britt_hermes_at_csicon">Hermes</a> and <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/an_interview_with_kevin_folta_at_csicon">Folta</a> from CSICon by the McGill Office for Science and Society.   <h4>CFI Highlights on the Web</h4> <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <img align="right" alt="cuba-1638594_1920.jpg" border="0" height="158" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/cuba-1638594_1920.jpg" width="170" /> Robert E. Bartholomew, a new fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, writes a special report on the recent Senate hearing on <a href="https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/sonic_attack_claims_are_unjustified_just_follow_the_facts">an alleged “sonic attack” in Cuba</a>. Despite the doubts of some of the senators, Bartholomew cautions against blanket dismissal. Of those who claim to have experienced the attack, he says, “most are normal, healthy people who are experiencing a collective stress reaction.” At the CFI Free Thinking blog, Benjamin Radford checks out an attempt to revive the <a href="/blogs/entry/the_arrest_and_conviction_of_blue_whale_game_svengali_filipp_budeykin/">“Blue Whale Suicide Game”</a> conspiracy theory, and looks at the various ways people try to explain away the <a href="/blogs/entry/why_trump_is_always_right/">baffling contradictory statements</a> emitted regularly by President Trump. From the Joe Nickell snake oil collection, <a href="/blogs/entry/celerina_quackery_with_cocaine/#When:18:23Z">we have Celerina</a>, a cure-all based on cocaine, which, interestingly, was not too far off from the original form of Coca-Cola, “The Ideal Nerve and Brain Tonic.” Plus, <a href="/blogs/entry/the_greatest_showman_a_nickell-odeon_review/">Joe reviews The Greatest Showman</a>, the film based on the life of P.T. Barnum. An antiabortion group at Oxford holding an event on the impact of abortion on men <a href="http://cherwell.org/2018/01/21/pseudo-scientists-dropped-from-oxford-anti-abortion-panel/">rescinded invitations from two speakers</a>, one of whom was none other than Vincent Rue, the right-wing fixer behind many cases of manufactured and pseudoscientific “expert testimony” in U.S. abortion court cases. <a href="http://cherwell.org/2018/01/21/pseudo-scientists-dropped-from-oxford-anti-abortion-panel/">Oxford outlet Cherwell</a> quotes CFI’s Nick Little about what is so problematic about this fellow, and Rue himself seems to know who’s got his number, citing “the Dawkins Foundations’ accusations.” <h4 style="text-align: center">And of course, you can keep up with news relevant to skeptics and seculars every weekday with <a href="/blogs/pfidalgo">The Morning Heresy.</a></h4> Upcoming CFI Events <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <img alt="a24955756_1533735043349163_6431254107621602997_o.jpg" border="0" height="212" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/a24955756_1533735043349163_6431254107621602997_o.jpg" style="float: right" width="170" />CFI Austin <ul> <li>February 10: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/245659029/">Darwin Day 2018</a> with keynote presentations, kids’ science activities, and more.</li> </ul> CFI Indiana <ul> <li>February 10: <a href="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/MessageViewer?current=true&em_id=66310.0">8th Annual Civic Day</a> with CFI’s Nick Little, Terri Jett from the ACLU of Indiana, Rima Shahid of Women4Change Indiana, and many more.</li> </ul> CFI Michigan <ul> <li>February 14: <a href="http://www.cfimichigan.org/events/event/w-lecture-021418/">Darwin Day lecture</a>, details forthcoming.</li> </ul> CFI Tampa Bay <ul> <li>February 3: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/CFI-Tampa-Bay/events/246801468/">Darwin Day 2018 - The Evolution of Happiness</a> with Phil Zuckerman, Jennifer Hancock, and Ryan Cragun.</li> <li>February 3: Participation in the first <a href="https://www.meetup.com/CFI-Tampa-Bay/events/246528256/">Meals on Wheels of Tampa 5K & Fun Run Music Fest</a>.</li> </ul>   Thank you! <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" />   Everything we do at CFI is made possible by you and your support. Let’s keep working together for science, reason, and secular values. <a href="/support">Donate today!</a> <img align="right" alt="CFI Logo Mark" border="0" height="137" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/CFI-mark.jpg" vspace="15" width="150" />Fortnightly updates not enough? Of course they’re not.        •  Follow CFI on <a href="http://twitter.com/center4inquiry">Twitter</a>.        •  Like us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/centerforinquiry">Facebook</a>.         •  Encircle us on <a href="https://plus.google.com/+CenterforinquiryNet">Google+</a>.         •  Subscribe to us on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/centerforinquiry">YouTube</a>. <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" />   Cause & Effect: The Center for Inquiry Newsletter is edited by Paul Fidalgo, Center for Inquiry communications director.  The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit educational, advocacy, and research organization headquartered in Amherst, New York, with executive offices in Washington, D.C. It is also home to both the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. The mission of CFI is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. Visit CFI on the web at www.centerforinquiry.net.    ]]></description> <dc:date>2018-01-24T15:57+00:00</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Cause &amp; Effect: The CFI Newsletter - No. 97</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_97/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_97/#When:16:47Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ Cause & Effect is the biweekly newsletter of the Center for Inquiry community, covering the wide range of work that you help make possible. <a href="/membership">Become a member today!</a> The Top Stories <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="Jennifer_Beahan_2017.jpg" border="0" height="227" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/jennifer_beahan_201718181.jpg" style="float: left" width="170" />New Leadership for a New Year at Two CFI Branches</h4> The new year begins with a new chapter for two of the Center for Inquiry’s vital and active local branches, as two dedicated members of the CFI family step into key leadership roles. A decade ago, the Freethought Association of West Michigan had already been going strong for ten years when it merged with the Center for Inquiry, becoming <a href="http://www.cfimichigan.org/">CFI’s Michigan branch</a>. At that time, CFI Michigan hired Jennifer Beahan as the assistant director, working with longtime Executive Director Jeff Seaver. Over the next ten years, CFI Michigan has hosted hundreds of lectures, organized civic events and family activities, and put their humanism into action with frequent “secular service” events. At the end of 2017, Jeff stepped down from his position at CFI Michigan, now in its twenty-first year, and as Jennifer takes on the role of executive director of CFI Michigan. As Jeff wrote in a message to branch members, “I have full confidence in her as a talented and able leader who is personally invested and committed to CFI Michigan’s important work.” All of us at CFI share Jeff’s confidence in Jen. “As I transition into the role of executive director, I look forward to leading the charge in our fight to defend science, reason, free inquiry, and humanist values,” wrote Jen in her own message. “I am honored by the continued support of our community and grateful for the countless hours Jeff Seaver … and all of our volunteers and members have devoted to building this community over the past twenty years.” <img align="right" alt="stef headshot" border="0" height="199" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Stef_Headshot.jpg" width="170" />We turn then to the Center for Inquiry’s transnational headquarters in Amherst, New York, which is not only the base of CFI’s operations around the world, but also the home of our thriving and close-knit <a href="https://www.centerforinquiry.net/wny">local branch for Western New York</a>. Volunteer Program Director John Barrett transitioned to becoming chair of the branch’s advisory board on January 1. Stepping up to becoming the branch’s new program director and its first paid staff member is Stef McGraw. Stef began as an outreach intern in 2012 and was hired as a full-time staff member in 2014. Her devotion and considerable communication and leadership skills were obvious from the beginning. Now, Stef will be dividing her time between her outreach duties for the national organization and running CFI Western New York. “CFI Western New York became my community group for secular activism and skeptical conversation,” wrote Stef in a message to branch members. “Now, I’m excited to have the opportunity to make this group even stronger so that it can serve even more humanists and skeptics in our region.” We have no doubt she will do just that.   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="Solstice Dinner 2017 081.jpg" border="0" height="169" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Solstice_Dinner_2017_081.jpg" style="float: left" width="170" />CFI Michigan Celebrates 20 Years at Solstice Awards Ceremony</h4> <a href="http://cfimichigan.org">CFI Michigan</a> hosted their annual Solstice Dinners in Grand Rapids and Madison Heights (in the Detroit Area) on December 13 and 16 respectively, with 120 combined attendees, despite the terrible snow storm. Eddie Tabash, CFI’s Board Chair, was the special guest at both dinners, and spoke about the dangers our movement and our country are currently facing and how supporting CFI is crucial to confronting those challenges. He also facilitated the “passing of the torch,” as mentioned in the above news item, honoring Jeff Seaver for twenty years of dedicated work building CFI Michigan. Eddie also expressed his confidence, and that of the national CFI leadership, in Jennifer Beahan as she takes on her new role as executive director. <img align="right" alt="Solstice Dinner 2017 089 cropped.jpg" border="0" height="176" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Solstice_Dinner_2017_089_cropped.jpg" width="170" />The Advisory Board honored Jeff with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Freethinker of the Year Award was presented to longtime member and supporter of CFI Michigan, Carl Bajema. Carl was a professor of biology at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) for more than forty years, with visiting professorships and fellowships at several institutions including Harvard. He has been a member of the branch since the early days of the Freethought Association, was responsible for first bringing Richard Dawkins to Michigan to speak at GVSU in 1997, and was a vocal supporter of evolution when other biology professors at GVSU were advancing creationism. He was responsible for authoring the Michigan Science Standards for teaching evolution. The Volunteer of the Year Awards were presented to the Shel Lynn Hawthorne and Dave Jensen, an inseparable pair who have volunteered together for several years. Jennifer noted, “It has been a pleasure to watch them go from quiet, introverted attendees who would sneak out before the Q&A was finished so that they didn’t have to talk to people … to becoming regular attendees at the information and sales tables at our regular meetings. Shel has been a dedicated volunteer to video tape our meetings, in spite of battling serious illness for the past year. Their dedication and perseverance has made them incredibly valuable volunteers.”   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="Screen Shot 2018-01-10 at 11.37.50 AM.png" border="0" height="218" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Screen_Shot_2018-01-10_at_11.37.50_AM.png" width="170" />Was Jesus a Man or a Myth? A Heated Debate in Free Inquiry</h4> The assertion that a historical Jesus once walked the Earth is obviously of monumental consequence to billions of Christians, and the question of the historicity of Jesus Christ, whether or not such a person ever existed, has been a matter of heated debate for centuries. Perhaps surprisingly, a great deal of that heat is generated from the arguments among nonbelievers! And the latest issue of <a href="https://www.secularhumanism.org/fi/">Free Inquiry</a>, the magazine of CFI’s <a href="https://www.secularhumanism.org/">Council for Secular Humanism</a>, is practically ablaze from the disagreement between freethought factions as to whether Jesus was a real person or a myth. This special cover feature is framed as a response to two previous articles by historian and Free Inquiry Senior Editor Bill Cooke, <a href="https://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/articles/8456">“Why Secular Humanists Should Abandon the Myth Theory of Jesus”</a> (December 2016/January 2017) and <a href="https://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/articles/9600">“The Mythical Jesus Argument: What’s the Key Issue?”</a> (October/November 2017) Representing the mythologist position for this issue are Biblical scholar Robert M. Price; David Fitzgerald, author of two books on the subject; and NASA engineer Michael Paulkovich. These writers hold nothing back in their fervent assault on the historicity position. “Jesus myth theory is Kryptonite for Christians. They can’t even enjoy a relaxed agnosticism about the mere possibility of mythicism being true,” writes FItzgerald. “They need Jesus not to be a myth. Unfortunately, he is a myth.” “If Jesus was as famous as the Bible claims,” writes Paulkovich, “somebody during the first century—outside of the authors of the New Testament fantasies—would have written about him.” Cooke himself gets the chance to respond in kind, characterizing the mythologist position as a mirror image of evangelical Christianity’s conception of Jesus, adding, “Mythicist scholarship ... bears some uncomfortably close similarities to conspiracy theorist thinking.” This issue of Free Inquiry also includes a moving essay from Lubna Ahmed Yaseen, a remarkable woman who escaped persecution in Iraq with help from CFI’s <a href="https://secure.centerforinquiry.net/secular-rescue">Secular Rescue program</a>, and a personal story from Nigerian activist Leo Igwe on his journey toward humanism and the fight against deadly superstitious beliefs in Africa. Plus so much more. Free Inquiry is available on newsstands, and by print or web subscription at <a href="http://secularhumanism.org/fi">secularhumanism.org/fi</a>.   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="poikvyv.png" border="0" height="172" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/poikvyv.png" width="170" />Latest Point of Inquiry Podcast is Non-Organic and Artificially Sweetened</h4> Will sugar really kill you? Or will it be artificial sweeteners that do you in? Is it really better to eat organic, or is it more of a status symbol? Point of Inquiry host Paul Fidalgo is, like many folks, confused about all of the conflicting health and nutrition information swirling around. That’s why on <a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org/yvette_dentremont_and_kavin_senapathy/">the latest episode of CFI’s flagship podcast</a>, he’s got two brilliant and hilarious guests to help sort through it all: skeptic activists and writers Yvette d’Entremont, also known as the “SciBabe,” and Kavin Senapathy, who also appears in the new documentary <a href="http://www.sciencemomsdoc.com/">Science Moms</a>. These three spend an hour clearing up myths, discussing their own journeys into science and reason, and laughing at their own jokes. A lot. It’s a great way to kick off a year of critical thinking, so go get the latest Point of Inquiry now at <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/point-of-inquiry/id107134018?mt=2">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/Iv2krupoe2g77bcepejmtf56jb4">Google Play,</a> <a href="https://tunein.com/radio/Point-of-Inquiry-p161945/">TuneIn</a>, or wherever you get podcasts.   <h4>CFI Highlights on the Web</h4> <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <img align="right" alt="global-warming-2958988_1280.jpg" border="0" height="248" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/global-warming-2958988_1280.jpg" width="170" /> Climate scientist Mark Boslough, a fellow of CFI’s <a href="https://www.csicop.org/">Committee for Skeptical Inquiry</a>, has for four years in a row challenged climate change deniers to prove their case and put up $25,000 to make it interesting. <a href="https://www.csicop.org/news/press_releases/show/skeptics_dare_heartland_institute">He started in partnership with CFI</a> back in 2015. No one has taken him up on the challenge yet, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/climate-bet-100000-risked-on-denier-challenges-so_us_5a456d46e4b0df0de8b06950">but Mark is at it again</a>, as he explains at HuffPost. New from Skeptical Inquirer: <ul> <li>Jeffrey S. Debies-Carl uses <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/pizzagate_and_beyond">the Pizzagate fake-plot</a> as a lens through which to examine conspiracy theories and how they can be better understood as legends.</li> <li>Kendrick Frazier, editor of Skeptical Inquirer, looks back at <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_roswell_incident_at_70_facts_not_myths">seventy years of the Roswell UFO incident</a>, pointing out how unremarkable the whole thing turned out to be at the time it was supposed to have happened.</li> <li>Eric Wojciechowski looks at why people with otherwise-impressive résumés and life stories <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/becoming_fantastic">feel the need to make up additional stuff</a> about themselves.</li> <li>Amy Frushour Kelly addresses the necessity of <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/critical_thinking_and_parenting">critical thinking when it comes to care for a special-needs child</a>, writing, “I’m literally a card-carrying skeptic, and even I had trouble discerning actual danger from what wasn’t dangerous. Can you imagine how much harder it is for the average special-needs parent?”</li> <li>Brett Taylor explores the myths about <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/hollywood_curse_legends">Hollywood “curses”</a> surrounding films like The Exorcist and celebrities like Bruce and Brandon Lee, and how the studios take advantage of those myths to sell their movies.</li> <li>Bertha Vazquez, powerhouse leader of our <a href="https://www.richarddawkins.net/ties/">Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science</a>, and Christopher Freidhoff present a kind of <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/ten_questions_and_answers_about_teaching_evolution">FAQ on evolution education</a>.</li> </ul> Like so much else in our culture, <a href="/blogs/entry/dieting_myths_new_years_resolution_edition/">the new year brings with it its own myths</a>, particularly about dieting. Some of these are addressed and deflated by Benjamin Radford at the CFI Free Thinking blog. <ul> <li>Ben’s work is also <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/01/02/close-encounters-racist-kind">noted by the Southern Poverty Law Center</a> in a piece on how the white supremacist alt-right mythologizes itself.</li> </ul> Also at the blog, Joe Nickell shows off a new acquisition, a pre-Civil War bottle for <a href="/blogs/entry/rare_sandss_sarsaparilla_bottle/">Sands’s Sarsaparilla</a>: “It purifies, cleanses, and strengthens the fountain springs of life, and infuses new vigor throughout the whole animal frame.” Sounds like it could be sold by Goop. <ul> <li>Plus, Joe is held up as a <a href="https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/01/04/how_to_actually_hunt_a_ghost.html">prime example of how to go about investigation</a> of the paranormal by RealClearScience’s Ross Pomeroy.</li> </ul> <h4 style="text-align: center">And of course, you can keep up with news relevant to skeptics and seculars every weekday with <a href="/blogs/pfidalgo">The Morning Heresy.</a></h4> Upcoming CFI Events <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> CFI Austin <ul> <li>January 15: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/246331403/">A “Food for Thought” discussion</a> on the wonderful world of animals, plants, and fungi in action.</li> <li>January 19: The first of CFI Austin’s <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/246517598/">Friday Night deLights</a> classes.</li> <li>January 21: Joshua Richards discusses why <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/244971640/">Jesus would have made a good atheist</a>.</li> <li>February 10: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/245659029/">Darwin Day 2018</a>, with keynote presentations, kids’ science activities, and more.</li> </ul>   CFI Michigan <ul> <li>January 10: <a href="http://www.cfimichigan.org/events/event/w-lecture-011018/">Garry Beckstrom of the Beckstrom Observatory</a> discusses a particular star that has baffled astronomers for over 200 years.</li> </ul>   CFI Tampa Bay <ul> <li>February 3: Participation in the first <a href="https://www.meetup.com/CFI-Tampa-Bay/events/246528256/">Meals On Wheels of Tampa 5K & Fun Run Music Fest</a>.</li> </ul>   CFI Western New York <ul> <li>January 19: CFI’s new director of government affairs, Jason Lemieux, presents a talk on <a href="/wny/events/getting_through_to_washington_a_congressional_staffers_take_on_what_you_nee/">his experience as a congressional staffer</a> and what it’s taught him about getting through to public officials.</li> </ul> Thank you! <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" />   Everything we do at CFI is made possible by you and your support. Let’s keep working together for science, reason, and secular values. <a href="/support">Donate today!</a> <img align="right" alt="CFI Logo Mark" border="0" height="137" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/CFI-mark.jpg" vspace="15" width="150" />Fortnightly updates not enough? Of course they’re not.        •  Follow CFI on <a href="http://twitter.com/center4inquiry">Twitter</a>.        •  Like us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/centerforinquiry">Facebook</a>.         •  Encircle us on <a href="https://plus.google.com/+CenterforinquiryNet">Google+</a>.         •  Subscribe to us on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/centerforinquiry">YouTube</a>. <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" />   Cause & Effect: The Center for Inquiry Newsletter is edited by Paul Fidalgo, Center for Inquiry communications director.  The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit educational, advocacy, and research organization headquartered in Amherst, New York, with executive offices in Washington, D.C. It is also home to both the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. The mission of CFI is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. Visit CFI on the web at www.centerforinquiry.net.    ]]></description> <dc:date>2018-01-10T16:47+00:00</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Cause &amp; Effect: The CFI Newsletter - No. 96</title> <link>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_96/</link> <guid>http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cause_effect_96/#When:20:02Z</guid> <description><![CDATA[ Cause & Effect is the biweekly newsletter of the Center for Inquiry community, covering the wide range of work that you help make possible. <a href="/membership">Become a member today!</a> The Top Stories <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="tom anti claus 2017" border="0" height="158" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Screen_Shot_2017-12-19_at_12.11.46_PM.png" style="float: left" width="170" />The Anti-Claus Works on Christmas, Raises Thousands for Secular Rescue</h4> For the vast majority of those reading this newsletter, Christmas Day was a day off of work. (If you’re a parent of young kids, you were likely still doing a great deal of work but not being paid for it.) The same is true for the Center for Inquiry (CFI), for though we are one of the world’s leading secularist and skeptic organizations, we also understand and appreciate the meaning and significance of this time of year for so many non-Christians, religious and nonreligious alike. In fact, <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/news/20171224/fewer-americans-celebrate-christmas-for-religious-reasons">The Columbus Dispatch just spoke to Monette Richards</a>, executive director of CFI Northeast Ohio, about this very phenomenon, wherein Christmas is a primarily secular holiday, the religious roots of which are incidental. But one member of our CFI family is having none of it, and that’s of course the “Anti-Claus” himself, Tom Flynn. Apart from being executive director of CFI’s Council for Secular Humanism and editor of Free Inquiry magazine, Tom is also the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Christmas-Tom-Flynn/dp/0879758481">The Trouble with Christmas</a>, and in accordance with his outright rejection of the holiday, every year on Christmas Day Tom comes into the office and works a normal day. And so he did this year as well, but rather than toil away in solitude, Tom found a way to bring his special brand of yuletide defiance to the world and even help a very good cause. <img align="right" alt="tom tree anti claus" border="0" height="162" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Screen_Shot_2017-12-27_at_2.47.03_PM.png" width="170" />On Christmas Day (or, as Tom thought of it, last Monday) <a href="https://www.centerforinquiry.net/christmas/">Tom livestreamed his workday online</a>. While “doing editor stuff” at his desk, he took questions from viewers, explained some of the weirder aspects of the Santa mythos (if you want to feel really unsettled about Santa legends, go look up his buddy Black Pete), and most importantly, helped raise money for <a href="https://secure.centerforinquiry.net/secular-rescue">CFI’s Secular Rescue program</a>. Secular Rescue is the CFI initiative that seeks to lend assistance to those secularist writers and activists whose lives are threatened by religious extremists in places such as Bangladesh, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Dozens of freethinkers have been brought to safety thanks to Secular Rescue, and they are once again free to speak their minds and serve as courageous examples to others around the world. At the end of Tom’s marathon broadcast, CFI Vice President for Philanthropy Martina Fern announced that viewers pitched in over $2500 for Secular Rescue, and with the help of some very generous supporters, those donations were matched, bringing in more than $5000. So whether or not you celebrate Christmas or any other holiday, even Tom agrees that doing this kind of good deed is a really wonderful gift. You can still watch the <a href="https://www.centerforinquiry.net/christmas/">recording of the livestream right here</a>, in case you need seven hours worth of Tom Flynn to keep you company. Maybe next year, Tom will livestream through all eight days of Hanukkah. We’ll ask.   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="FDA.jpg" border="0" height="128" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/FDA.jpg" style="float: left" width="170" />A One-Two Punch to Homeopathy</h4> Two salvos were launched against the deceptive and dangerous marketing of homeopathic fake medicine last week, both thanks to the Center for Inquiry’s relentless pursuit of stricter regulation of these baseless treatments. On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) <a href="https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm589243.htm">announced</a> it would begin to take a tougher stance against the manufacturers of those homeopathic products that pose the greatest risk to consumers’ health and safety. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said, “We respect that some individuals want to use alternative treatments, but the FDA has a responsibility to protect the public from products that may not deliver any benefit and have the potential to cause harm.” <a href="/newsroom/fdas_tougher_stance/">We cautiously applauded this news</a>, noting that CFI has been pushing for these changes for many years and in 2015, was invited to deliver testimony to the FDA on homeopathy. <a href="https://gizmodo.com/the-fda-is-cracking-down-on-homeopathic-remedies-1821403162">Gizmodo even gave CFI credit</a> for this new development. But still in all this time, very little has changed, so we will be watching closely to see whether the FDA follows through. <img align="right" alt="571e91c185bf3.image.png" border="0" height="1" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/571e91c185bf3.image.png" width="1" /><img align="right" alt="571e91c185bf3.image.png" border="0" height="149" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/571e91c185bf3.image.png" width="170" />A few days later, <a href="/newsroom/cvs_must_stop/">CFI filed a complaint against CVS Health</a> in the DIstrict of Columbia’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. We warned that CVS is both deceiving and endangering the health of its customers by marketing homeopathic products as though they are scientifically proven treatments (which they are most certainly not) and displaying those products alongside real, evidence-based medicine. “CVS is deliberately creating the false impression that homeopathic products are as safe and effective as scientifically-proven medicine,” said Nick Little, CFI’s Vice President and General Counsel, in our statement. “By obscuring the crucial distinction between genuine and sham treatments, CVS is unscrupulously abusing the trust of its customers while putting their health and even their lives at risk.” Stay tuned as this reinvigorated push against fake medicine proceeds.   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="donald-trump-mike-pence.jpg" border="0" height="126" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/donald-trump-mike-pence.jpg" width="170" />Policy Update: Johnson Amendment and CDC’s Seven Words</h4> The religious Right has been relentless in its efforts to dismantle the Johnson Amendment, the law that bars tax-exempt nonprofits (such as churches and the Center for Inquiry) from endorsing or advocating against candidates for political office. The amendment has taken blows from executive orders and sneaky legislative schemes since Trump came to office, and the end of the amendment truly seemed nigh when its repeal was included in the GOP’s major tax-cut bill. Well now there’s good news, whatever one might think of the tax overhaul itself. Thanks in large part to the pressure exerted by you and all those who spoke out against this repeal, religious and nonreligious alike, by the time of final passage <a href="/news/no_johnson_amendment_repeal/">the scrapping of the Johnson Amendment was no longer part of the bill</a>. This is certainly not going to be the last time the religious Right tries to kill the Johnson Amendment, but we can be proud that as of now the law still stands. Also, you may have noticed the outcry over news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-gets-list-of-forbidden-words-fetus-transgender-diversity/2017/12/15/f503837a-e1cf-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html">reportedly “banned”</a> the use of the following words in its reports: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” and “science-based.” If true, this would have indicated a whole new level of Orwellian Newspeak. But now it looks like the truth was that experts readying the budget proposal for the science and diversity-hostile GOP Congress suggested that these words might raise red flags and complicate their efforts. Either way, we released a statement <a href="/newsroom/cdc_must_not_cave/">telling the CDC to stand firm</a>, advising them “to reject this aggressive strain of ignorance and hostility which seeks to make ‘science’ a dirty word. The CDC cannot stay above the fray of politics by choosing to serve some Americans at the expense of others.”   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <h4><img align="left" alt="Quarter-mail-6--A.png" border="0" height="121" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/Quarter-mail-6--A.png" width="170" />A Few Days Left to Make an Enormous Impact</h4> Louis Appignani is helping us to start 2018 stronger than ever, challenging the supporters of reason and science to give our shared mission the resources we need to make even greater progress. But he’s not just asking; he’s participating. Louis has generously agreed to match every single donation to the Center for Inquiry all the way <a href="https://secure.centerforinquiry.net/doublemygiftlou">up to a quarter million dollars</a>. Louis will double the power of every contribution that comes in from now until the end of 2017, but that’s just a few short days away! He’s giving all of us the opportunity to make a powerful impact in support of freethought, free expression, and free inquiry. With reality being twisted every day by the forces of superstition, conspiracy theories, and religious dogma, there’s never been a greater need for CFI to have the resources to confront these challenges. Make no mistake; Louis Appignani is serious about this mission. For decades, he’s been a champion of secularism and the rights of the nonreligious. Please don’t miss this opportunity. We can meet the Appignani Quarter Million Dollar Challenge and do more for our cause than ever before. <a href="https://secure.centerforinquiry.net/doublemygiftlou">Make your tax-deductible, matched donation right now</a>.   <h4>CFI Highlights on the Web</h4> <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> <img align="right" alt="ufonyt" border="0" height="135" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/171219092059-ufo-department-of-defense-unidentified-flyi.jpg" width="170" />UFOs have been top-of-mind lately after the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html">reported</a> on secretive military projects intended to investigate sightings of unknown craft. Looking to get a rational look at belief in aliens and UFOs, <a href="https://futurism.com/ufo-stigma/">Alexandra Ossola at Futurism spoke to CFI’s Joe Nickell</a>. They discussed the importance of scientific rigor in the evaluation of UFO claims and why believing in UFOs doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. Joe’s vast knowledge of the paranormal was <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5147544/spontaneous-human-combustion-cause/">also sought by the UK’s The Sun</a>, where he brought the skeptical perspective to reports of spontaneous human combustion. Religious Right commentator Dennis Prager runs an online fake-university (it’s really just a YouTube channel) called “PragerU,” and in one such “course,” <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/seti_requires_a_skeptical_reappraisal">an article by Peter Schenkel in Skeptical Inquirer</a> is invoked to help prove the existence of God. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqtLUkM9txI&feature=youtu.be">Not so fast, says YouTuber potholer54</a>, who lays out exactly how our magazine was misquoted and misconstrued. At CFI’s Free Thinking blog, <a href="/blogs/entry/why_are_you_asking_reporting_the_black_santa_story/">Benjamin Radford backs up the principle</a> of due diligence in reporting, responding to some of the backlash he saw from his piece on the exaggerated reports of displeasure over a black Santa. <h4 style="text-align: center">And of course, you can keep up with news relevant to skeptics and seculars every weekday with <a href="/blogs/pfidalgo">The Morning Heresy.</a></h4> Upcoming CFI Events <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" /> CFI Austin <ul> <li>January 21: Joshua Richards discusses why <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/244971640/">Jesus would have made a good atheist</a>.</li> <li>February 10: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/cfiaustin/events/245659029/">Darwin Day 2018</a>, with keynote presentations, kids’ science activities, and more.</li> </ul> CFI Indiana <ul> <li>December 31: <a href="/indy/events/new_years_eve_game_night4/">New Year’s Eve Game Night</a>.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>January 30: At “Books, Booze, and Brains,” computer scientists Matt Powers and George Takahashi <a href="/indy/events/books_booze_and_brains/">discuss </a><a href="/indy/events/books_booze_and_brains/">Ready Player One</a>.</li> </ul> CFI Western New York <ul> <li>January 19: CFI’s new Director of Government Affairs, Jason Lemieux, presents a talk on <a href="/wny/events/getting_through_to_washington_a_congressional_staffers_take_on_what_you_nee/">his experience as a congressional staffer</a> and what it’s taught him about getting through to public officials.</li> </ul> Thank you! <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" />   Everything we do at CFI is made possible by you and your support. Let’s keep working together for science, reason, and secular values. <a href="/support">Donate today!</a> <img align="right" alt="CFI Logo Mark" border="0" height="137" hspace="15" src="http://action.centerforinquiry.net/images/content/pagebuilder/CFI-mark.jpg" vspace="15" width="150" />Fortnightly updates not enough? Of course they’re not.        •  Follow CFI on <a href="http://twitter.com/center4inquiry">Twitter</a>.        •  Like us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/centerforinquiry">Facebook</a>.         •  Encircle us on <a href="https://plus.google.com/+CenterforinquiryNet">Google+</a>.         •  Subscribe to us on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/centerforinquiry">YouTube</a>.   <hr style="color: #dddddd; background-color: #dddddd; height: 1px; border: 0px none; width: 99%" />     Cause & Effect: The Center for Inquiry Newsletter is edited by Paul Fidalgo, Center for Inquiry communications director.  The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit educational, advocacy, and research organization headquartered in Amherst, New York, with executive offices in Washington, D.C. It is also home to both the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. The mission of CFI is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. Visit CFI on the web at www.centerforinquiry.net.    ]]></description> <dc:date>2017-12-27T20:02+00:00</dc:date> </item> </channel> </rss>