Admission to the
3rd Annual Orange County Freethought Alliance Conference
is by paid registration only.

Mark McCaffrey will discuss NCSE’s just-initiated efforts to promote climate change education via resources that it has developed in the areas of “Climate Change 101″, “Teaching Climate Change”, “Climate Change Denial”, and “Taking Action”.

This is a Forum Program presented by the
Humanists in Silicon Valley

Sponsored by the
Humanist Society of Santa Barbara

Creationism usually is considered an American (or North American) controversy, but it is spreading internationally, as conservative Christian missionaries use creationist literature in their missionary activities. Its spread, as one might expect, is also influenced by idiosyncrasies of culture, politics and national pride.


Sponsored by
the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry,
the Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP,
and The European Council of Skeptical Organisations (ECSO)

2012 marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Edwards v. Aguillard and the 30th anniversary of the trial court decision in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education. These decisions were the culmination of a legal battle over the place of creation-science in public schools and significantly shaped Establishment Clause jurisprudence.

This all-day symposium on the history of creation-science legal disputes and the legal implications of Edwards features participants from the ACLU, Louisiana, Wisconsin, N.Y Law School, Columbia University, and, of course, Stanford Law School.

A joint project of the
Stanford Constitutional Law Center
and the
National Center for Science Education

Free and open to the public

After the failure of creation science and intelligent design to survive legal tests of their constitutionality, the creationist movement evolved new strategies. These call for teaching the “strengths and weaknesses of evolution” or the “critical analysis of evolution” which are creationism in disguise. In lieu of policies promoting the teaching of creation science or Intelligent Design, modern creationists try to change state science education standards or pass state legislation to promote these “softer” and less-obvious approaches. Such “Academic Freedom Act” legislation has popped up in several states already, and reflects the creationism du jour.

Presentation sponsored by
The Victorian Skeptics

The dictionary definition of reason is “the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences”, or “sound judgment; good sense.” The intersection of reason and creationism is understandably a small one, when viewed in this manner. But reason is also defined as the basis or cause of something, as when we speak of the reason for doing something. A reason can also be a statement explaining a belief or action. Viewed this way, of course creationists have reasons for their beliefs – but the beliefs rarely have much to do with the other kinds of reason, reflecting empirical evidence and science. Using examples from creation science and intelligent design, I will explore “reason and creationism”.

A presentation in the
SkepTalk Speaker Series
sponsored by the
Bay Area Skeptics

This free public
Theodosia Hadley Lecture
is sponsored by the
Department of Biological Sciences

This is a free public talk