Stellar Alchemy

TAM5

The Amazing Meeting 5, Las Vegas, January 2007

The Riviera

This is the conference hotel and casino that hosted the conference.

The Riviera

This is the conference hotel as it looks at night. Like everything on the strip, it's bright, multi-coloured, and flashing.

Skepchick and Jim

The great Skepchick, A.K.A. Rebecca Watson, founder of Skepchick.org and co-host of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast. We ran into her the first morning. Here she is with Jim.

Skepchick and me

I met the Skepchick. How great is that!?

Jim and Jim

The amazing one himself, James Randi, founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation and the reason the TAM conferences exist in the first place. We met him just after registration. Here he is with Jim.

James Randi and me

I can't believe I met James the amazing Randi. By the way, I'd like to add, he's really a very friendly guy - it's just that right before this picture was taken I specifically asked him to put on his grumpy face, just to make an interesting shot.

Michael Shermer

This is Michael Shermer, president of The Skeptics Society, writer of the Skeptic column for Scientific American Magazine, and founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine. He gave the first presentation of the conference. He talked about some of the connections between evolution and morality and why humans, as social animals, have built-in moral instincts.

Neil Gershenfeld

Neil Gershenfeld, from the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms gave a very interesting talk on his group's "Fab Labs" that have been erected in remote places around the world to give communities access to means for fabricating their own technological designs.

Lori Lipman Brown

Lori Lipman Brown is the directory and lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for America.

Peter Sagal

Peter Sagal is the host of NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me.

Scott Dikkers

Scott Dikkers is the editor of The Onion. He had the entire audience busting a gut, especially when he played his recording of the moon landing.

The Bad Astronomer

Phil Plait, A.K.A. The Bad Astronomer, who runs Badastronomy.com gave a great presentation on the moon landing and those who claim it was a hoax.

James Randi

James Randi at the podium.

Nick Gillespie

Nick Gillespie is the editor-in-chief of the libertarian monthly Reason magazine.

Ron Bailey

Ron Bailey is the science correspondent for Reason magazine.

John Rennie

John Rennie is the editor-in-chief of Scientific American magazine. He posted a review of the meeting HERE.

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens is an author and journalist.

Adam Savage

The great Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame came to the conference along with Tory Belleci from the Mythbusters build team. Adam was very enthusiastic and happy to be at the TAM. He brought along several items from the show to be auctioned off, and we were all very pleased that both he and Phil Plait pledged to continue coming to future TAM meetings for as long as Randi and the other organizers want them!

Penn Jillette

Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller was on stage multiple times, both as interviewer and interviewee.

Matt Stone

Matt Stone is the co-creator of Southpark, one of the best skeptical television shows out there, and one that reaches a huge audience.

Trey Parker

Trey Parker is the other co-creator of Southpark. Both he and Matt went on stage to be interviewed by Penn Jillette, but mostly took questions from the audience.

Penn Jillette and James Randi

This is a shot of Penn and Randi that Jim managed to snap. I don't know where I was at the time.

Richard Wiseman and Jim

Richard Wiseman is a psychologist and author. Despite severe technical difficulties beyond his control, he still managed to give us a great presentation on his search to find the world's funniest joke. Here he is with Jim.

Richard Wiseman and me

I loved his presentation on the TAM4 DVDs. It was such a thrill to meet him in person. He was super friendly, as was everyone at TAM.

Jim and Phil Plait

Phil Plait is an idol for both Jim and me. When he heard that we were Canadian he was gracious enough to end his sentences with "eh" and call us both "hosers".

Me and Phil Plait

Okay, it's not the greatest photo, but we only took the one shot. I'll just assume that that's his skeptical look.

Jerry Andrus and me

Jerry Andrus is a magician, inventor, and master of optical illusions. Here he is explaining to me about how he rigged his computer keyboard so that the thumbs were not wasted on pushing just the spacebar. He placed several keys atop his spacebar so that the thumbs could be better utilized when typing. Clever guy.

Robert Todd Carroll and Jim

Bob Carroll created The Skeptic's Dictionary which is a tremendously useful internet resource for skeptics. I attended a workshop at the conference that he put on with both Diane Swanson and Ray Hall, on the topic of getting critical thinking into the classroom. Here he is with Jim.

Me and Robert Todd Carroll

What a pleasure. I met Bob Carroll of The Skeptic's Dictionary. Here is his January 23rd report on the conference.

Jim and Penn Jillette

I never did get to meet Penn Jillette, unfortunately. While I wandered off somewhere, though, Jim found him and nabbed a photo.

Jim and Teller

Both Jim and I ran into Teller at the conference, but at different times. Jim nabbed this photo, and I got Teller to sign an insult in my copy of creationist Michael Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box".

Jim and Trey Parker

Another couple of people Jim managed to meet and I didn't: Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of the hilarious cartoon Southpark.

Jim and Matt Stone

Here's Jim with Matt Stone.

Hal Bidlack and Jim

Hal Bidlack worked tirelessly at both keeping the conference organized, and playfully insulting Phil Plait. He was the primary M.C. for the conference and he did a great job.

Hal Bidlack and me

Hal Bidlack also put on a show at the conference where he impersonated Alexander Hamilton and took questions from the audience in character. Alas, I didn't see that performance, but I did get a chance to wish him good luck as I passed him in the hallway in costume.

Greg Winslow and me

Greg Winslow, magician and manager of Specialty Sensor Technologies in Montreal was a paper presenter at the very first TAM. He was also a guest speaker at my Enrichment Mini-Course in May of 2006 (and hopefully May of 2007).

Me and Jamy Ian Swiss

Jamy Ian Swiss is a famous close-up magician, lecturer, and author. He was a very interesting guy to listen to. He showed Jim, and me several different card tricks while discussing sleight of hand techniques with fellow magician Greg Winslow.

Ray Hall

Dr. Ray Hall is a physicist, and like Greg Winslow, was a paper presenter at the very first TAM. Since then he's been in charge of organizing and refereeing the paper presenters at TAM. He did a great job and was very friendly despite the fact that I shamelessly went overtime on my talk. He was also one of the organizers of the workshop I attended on getting critical thinking into the classroom.

Harriet Hall, M.D.

Harriet Hall was the first presenter during the Sunday session. She talked about her frustrating experiences trying to bring skepticism and critical thinking to non-skeptics.

Kylie Sturgess

Kylie Sturgess was the second presenter during the Sunday session. She talked about the importance of objectively testing the effectiveness of teaching critical thinking in the classroom. She also gave me a CD copy of her materials, which may help shape my next mini-course this May.

David Green

David Green is a fellow Ottawan (Ottawanian? Ottawanite? whatever). He works for the patent office here in Ottawa. His talk was about the structure of the patent application system in Canada and why patents for perpetual motion machines and the like are not so hard to obtain despite the fact that patent examiners like himself know full well that such things violate the laws of physics.

Me

My presentation was about my Web Applet that uses a simulated process of Darwinian evolution to produce irreducible complexity.

Skepchick

Rebecca Watson's talk was on how to become a C-list internet celebrity in just 30 days. She attempted to film the audience taking part in the blasphemy challenge by denying the holy spirit and all sorts of other supernatural stuff indistinguishable from things that don't exist. It seems the camera didn't function properly. It was probably an act of God.

Dr. Stephen Novella

Dr. Novella talked about the meaning of the world "natural", especially as it's used to describe medications and food products and the like. Dr. Novella is the host of my favorite podcast: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. He's also president of the New England Skeptical Society.

Ginger Switzer

Ginger Switzer presented on the topic of wordsmithing and how the proper choice of words can have a big effect on how ideas are received and understood.

Benjamin Radford

Benjamin Radford is the managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine and author of Media Mythmakers. During his presentation he showed us a very comical video poking fun at the nature of television news and content.