The recent 50th CSICon, held in Buffalo, New York, was the first CSI conference that I had ever attended. I have been retired for a year and am hoping to get back into my hobby project of dealing with pseudoscience issues in astronomy, so when I first heard of the conference being (relatively) nearby in Buffalo, NY, I felt that I had to check it out. It turned out the location and timing were fortuitous for some other visits, including a visit to the Star Trek set reconstruction in Ticonderoga, NY, but that is another story.
It was kind of weird as I had followed many science and critical thinking audio podcasts, but not so much video, so I'd be walking around hearing all these familiar voices, but visually recognized very few. I met some while waiting for the hotel elevator, such as Richard Wiseman and Banachek. There were a number of other familiar faces from various public talks and other media appearances, such as Bill Nye, Leighann Lord, Eugenie Scott, Michael Mann, Brian Brushwood, Susan Gerbic, and the group from Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Of course, other NCAS members were there, such as Chip and Grace Denman, Scott Snell, and Rob Evon.
I didn't attend all the presentations. CSI has more focus on medical and psychological pseudoscience issues rather than the physical sciences, where more of my concern and interest reside. Some I ended up sitting in on because I wanted to be there for the talk afterwards.
I missed the opening of Andrea Love's "Sanitizing Snake Oil Harms Public Health" presentation but still managed to see some useful reminders on the so-called 'wellness' industry and how it rakes in hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Frankly, I'm still not clear where the boundary is between taking good care of your health with diet and exercise vs 'wellness,' which seems to promote taking odd concoctions. The really fascinating part of this talk for me was the details on pesticides that can be used on foods labeled 'organic,' which can be used in larger quantities and may be more hazardous than regulated pesticides. Many of the details from this talk appear to be available in the Newsletter section of Dr. Love's website, immunologic.org.
There was a fascinating presentation on the history of pseudoscience in America by Rina Raphael and Nick Tiller, "The United States of Pseudoscience," mostly focused on Spiritualism. A surprising number of non-skeptical movements started in the western part of New York state, which was described in Stuart Vyse's talk, "Welcome to the Burned-Over District."
Several presentations on the growth of the modern skeptical movement talked specifically about the contributions of Carl Sagan and James Randi. But it wasn't until Eugenie Scott's presentation on her role in exposing a faith healer that I heard Johnny Carson mentioned. Carson's Tonight Show played an important role in introducing Sagan and Randi to a wider audience, especially those like myself who grew up in rural farm towns.
Perry Carpenter gave an interesting presentation, “Myth-Direction,” on the ease of generating AI movies interactively from real imagery using Sora 2. With his laptop camera focused on him, he could present a different character to the audience, and that character would duplicate his motions with impressive reliability. He also directed the audience to an impressive AI-generated movie preview at “AI or Die,” titled “Pi-Hard,” using an interesting cast of celebrities.
The trailer was interesting enough that...well, I would want to see that movie! ;^)
I've been a fan of Brian Brushwood since his Scam School vodcast days. With “WolfMasking,” Brian presents an interesting way to protect workplaces from phishing attacks by teaching the psychology of HOW those attacks work in a 'learn-by-doing' approach for a class of student nurses at Clemson University (caught my attention as I went to grad school there). It was done as a game with scoring based on fooling others vs being fooled. There are several online sources describing this approach in more detail.
I had several other enjoyable times with unscheduled opportunities for chatting with organizers and other attendees at the conference.
Also, while waiting in the lobby outside the ballroom, I overheard some organizers discussing that this CSICon had the largest number of new attendees, so I spoke to that person at the registration desk. She speculated that lots of East Coasters don't want to go to Vegas, where it was previously held (perhaps that location was easier access to many magicians who attend?). Alternatively, were the current political conditions with science an incentive for more to attend?
I had several lively discussions in the hotel lobby with attendees. One in particular was with an attendee flamboyantly dressed as an official of the Pastafarians, another attendee who clearly had lots of computing experience, and my wife. We discussed the origins of the FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) with the Kansas Board of Education creationism case from 2004, critical thinking in general, recent updates on the reliability of AI, and the joys of distributing various editions of 1984 from the trunk of your car.
There were a few things that surprised me compared with other conferences I've attended.
For Mary Roach's presentation, people could submit questions in advance (the responses to which also became the source of many 'in-jokes' throughout the conference). But I was disappointed there were no Questions & Answers segments for the regular speakers at the conclusion of their talks, though there were some additional sessions that had a live Q&A, such as the Project Alpha interview by Brian Brushwood. Was this due to time constraints or concern about questioners that take a long time to get to their actual question? It can be difficult to track down some of the speakers post-presentation for questions. There should be a way to address this: Time limits for questioners? Submitting questions in writing during or post-presentation?
One thing I would have liked to see is more on 'best practices' in confronting pseudoscience, either done as a general discussion or even some type of workshop. We know the 'just the facts' approach is limited at best. I pulled back from some of my efforts back when the 'backfire' effect suggested such approaches help pseudoscience advocates dig-in on their views. Some debunkers resort to name-calling and abusive attitudes, which also reinforce attitudes. There has been much discussion about appropriate storytelling and social bonding, such as described in Lee McIntyre's "How to Talk to a Science Denier," but it might be good to see how that might be implemented.
Curious Minds at Play
Rob Evon
If you picture a skeptics’ conference as four days of earnest academics frowning over footnotes while correcting one another’s statistics, CSICon 2026 in Buffalo would have come as quite a surprise.
Yes, there were outstanding talks on science, medicine, psychology, misinformation, and the major challenges facing our world. But the real magic happened between the lectures, in hallways, over meals, and in conversations with people whose curiosity seemed to know no bounds. The attendees I met were engineers, artists, historians, students, investigators, scientists, collectors, and storytellers (sometimes all in the same person!) united by one delight: figuring out how the world works. Curiosity and play have always gone hand in hand.
One of the weekend’s biggest laughs came courtesy of Sammy Shuster, who introduced attendees to the Holistic Quantum Art Activation Expo, a brilliantly executed parody of the wellness industry. Presented with the polished confidence of a genuine wellness fair, it promises quantum healing, vibrational alignment, mystical energy activation, and other familiar buzzwords just plausible enough to make visitors briefly wonder whether they’ve wandered into a real New Age festival.
That’s exactly the point: by exaggerating the language of pseudoscience only slightly, the exhibit becomes what psychologists call prebunking – helping people recognize misleading rhetorical tricks before encountering them in real life. It’s hilarious, thought-provoking, and surprisingly effective. Better still, the Expo returns to Philadelphia this October…and with next year’s CSICon also heading to Philadelphia, perhaps this won’t be the last time skeptics get to enjoy the joke.
CSICon also offered a behind-the-scenes tour of the Center for Inquiry headquarters, a destination that belongs on every skeptic’s bucket list.
The undisputed highlight was Chief Investigator Kenny Biddle’s office, proudly displaying a certificate proclaiming it “The Best Office in the Galaxy.” If an office can simultaneously contain a haunted doll, Ghostbusters memorabilia, Joe Nickell’s whimsical
Alien Timeline, vintage cameras, UFO models, paranormal investigation equipment, Houdini artifacts, Bigfoot casts, mysterious curiosities, and enough pop-culture references to occupy visitors for half an hour, you’ve probably stopped decorating and started curating. Kenny crossed that line years ago.
Just down the hall are the papers of two giants of modern skepticism. Martin Gardner inspired generations through his legendary Mathematical Games column in Scientific American, while Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science helped lay much of the intellectual foundation for today’s organized skeptical movement. Preserved in a special room nearby are the personal notebooks of Steve Allen, remembered by many as the original host of The Tonight Show but also a prolific writer and longtime advocate for humanism, critical thinking, and scientific skepticism. His books included Dumbth, an extended assault on muddled reasoning, and two volumes critically examining the Bible and religion. He later helped lead CSICOP’s Council for Media Integrity, challenging television programs that blurred the distinction between science and pseudoscience.
Gardner and Allen also remind us that skepticism has often reached millions through entertainment rather than argument. Mark Twain encouraged readers to question assumptions. Douglas Adams gleefully dismantled pomposity and illogic. Star Trek imagined a future powered not by magic, but by curiosity, science, and cooperation. Banachek (and other magicians such as Penn & Teller) turned exposing deception into an art form. Add Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Richard Feynman, James Randi, and one begins to appreciate how deeply critical thinking has seeped into popular culture, where programs like MythBusters or even Scooby-Doo picked up the story. Millions of people learned to ask “How do we know?” long before they ever encountered the phrase "critical thinking."
The headquarters is also becoming home to CFI’s ambitious History of Freethought and Skepticism Gallery. When completed, it will trace humanity’s long tradition of questioning received wisdom, from the ancient philosophers through the Enlightenment to the modern scientific era. Few institutions attempt to tell the story of freethought, skepticism, and scientific inquiry in one place, and CFI’s initiative deserves broad support as it works toward opening to the public.
Buffalo itself rewarded curious minds. Samuel Clemens spent two formative years living in Buffalo after his marriage, editing the
Buffalo Express and establishing himself as a major American writer. Today, the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library honors that connection through its remarkable Mark Twain Room, which houses the original manuscript of
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Standing before Twain’s handwritten pages and revisions offers a rare glimpse into the creative process of one of America’s greatest satirists.
Only a few blocks farther stood another delightful coincidence. During the week of CSICon, the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum happened to be exhibiting original correspondence to and from Charles Darwin. Reading Darwin’s letters reminds us that revolutionary ideas rarely arrive as solitary flashes of genius. More often they emerge through years of conversation, criticism, collaboration, and painstaking attention to evidence.
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Darwin's letter to Lady Hooker (wife of Joseph),
regarding a humorous gift of bananas she had sent him at the height of
his public fame |
The conference also offered encouraging evidence that skepticism’s future is in good hands.
Many attendees first met Wasayef, Tyler, and Kimberly, three students from Fresno State, at this spring’s Lilienfeld Conference. Their presentations impressed attendees so much that members of the skeptical community quietly helped fund their first trip to CSICon. Throughout the weekend, they peppered speakers with thoughtful questions and eagerly introduced themselves to veteran investigators. Watching established skeptics enthusiastically welcome the next generation was every bit as encouraging as any keynote address.
One of my own favorite conversations wasn’t with a featured speaker at all.
While waiting between sessions, I struck up a conversation with Mujahid Hussain, a graduate student in horticultural sciences at the University of Florida who was attending his first CSICon. Within minutes he accomplished something I would have considered nearly impossible: he made apple research absolutely fascinating. Disease resistance, genetics, climate resilience, breeding techniques, food security–his enthusiasm was contagious. Working in the laboratory of noted plant scientist and science communicator Kevin Folta, Hussain reflected the same philosophy that has made Folta such an effective public advocate for science: if you’re genuinely excited about discovery, other people usually will be too. By the end of our conversation, I found myself wanting to learn more about apples than I ever imagined possible.
Every conference seems to attract someone pursuing an irresistibly ambitious side project. This year it was a brilliant engineer from Texas building what looked like the entirety of recorded human history in Microsoft Excel.
Not just a chronology. Everything. Civilizations. Empires. Wars. Scientific discoveries. Philosophers. Artists. Inventors. Political leaders. Explorers. Writers. The births and deaths of hundreds of influential people stretching from the Indus Valley civilization to the Internet age. Well, ok, maybe not “everything” at this stage, but it was amazing how much he had plowed into this prototype model. He allowed me to see a “read-only” link, and it was truly remarkable.
Scroll horizontally, and history comes alive. Socrates overlaps the Roman Republic. Newton lives through the Salem witch trials. Michelangelo and Columbus were contemporaries. Darwin and Lincoln don’t just share the same century – they share the same birthday. Einstein, Churchill, Turing, and Tolkien briefly inhabit the same world (so did Alexander Graham Bell and Betty White, for that matter). Three thousand years collapse into a single visual tapestry revealing connections that most history books never make obvious. It sounds delightfully absurd…until you spend five minutes exploring it. That’s skepticism in miniature…not memorizing facts, but discovering relationships.
By the conference’s end, a pattern had become impossible to miss. The people gathered at CSICon aren’t united by cynicism or disbelief, but by curiosity. They are artists, writers, comedians, magicians, librarians, teachers, scientists, engineers, investigators, students, and endlessly curious amateurs, each contributing in their own way. At gatherings like this, I am always reminded that skepticism, at its best, isn’t simply the art of saying “no.” It’s the lifelong habit of asking better questions – and having an awful lot of fun doing it.
See you in Philadelphia.
My CSICon 2026 Experience
Scott Snell
My CSICon 2026 experience began on Thursday morning, June 11, with “The CFI History and Mystery Tour” out in Amherst, a half-hour bus ride from the Buffalo Convention Center. Led by Kenny Biddle (Chief Investigator for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) and Tim Binga (director of Libraries and IT manager at CFI), a few dozen of us made our way through the CFI headquarters building. (This 2021
video covers most of the information we heard about the downstairs library.) Before boarding our bus for the ride back, we were given a sneak preview of the
History of Freethought and Skepticism Gallery, set to open later this year. (Photos weren’t permitted, but I was allowed a photo of a smoke alarm dangling from wires beneath the gallery’s skylight. Binga laughed when I told him it looked like a UFO flying overhead.)
During the return ride, I contrasted what I’d just seen with vague memories of my previous visit (the CSI 30th anniversary observance in 2006) and my first visit, for the
1996 World Skeptics Congress.
Back at the Convention Center, the first workshop of the day (“Investigating Extraordinary Claims” with Jim Underdown and Ben Radford) turned out to be my favorite event. Radford described a segment on the TV series
Strange Evidence that he’d participated in. (The
episode is available on Tubi, with the 8-minute segment starting at the 22-minute mark.) His recent resolution of the long-standing mystery was entertaining and memorable. (Radford also related the story in the
June 6 episode of
Squaring the Strange.) Jim Underdown preceded Radford with a discussion of the “
$500,000 Paranormal Challenge.” At one point, Underdown asked the audience to raise their hands if they thought that almost every paranormal contestant had tried to cheat, or some had, or none had. Nearly the entire audience raised their hands for “almost every.” Underdown said none had…zero. During the Q/A, I asked Underdown about this: “Interesting that cheaters only went to Duke, Princeton, or Stanford Research Institute to be tested, not to CFIIG.” Underdown speculated that CFIIG’s reputation dissuaded cheaters from even trying.
The next workshop, “Don’t Believe Everything You Believe,” was unfortunately sold out when I signed up for CSICon back in January. In the meantime, Rob Evon and I enjoyed the concurrent poster session and chatting with the authors. I was pleasantly surprised to see some younger ones, all of whom were students of Professor Katie Dyer at California State University, Fresno. (She discusses her approach to critical-thinking education in this 2025
video.)
Related to age demographics, I was also pleasantly surprised to see no face masks at any time during this conference of several hundred mostly senior-aged people, gathered from far-flung places around the world, some of whom I know to be cancer survivors. I felt fine during (and after) my mingling, chatting at length, and dining with many folks during those four days, plus time in planes to and from Buffalo. I hope everyone else had a similar healthy experience. (Although I prefer to see faces, I emphasize that I want people to do whatever they should to protect their health and reduce risk to others who may be more vulnerable. Ideally, the vulnerable will wear a properly-fitted N95 mask to thoroughly protect themselves, regardless of the choices of others.)
Next, I enjoyed Richard Wiseman and Ray Hall’s “Magic for Skeptics” workshop. One of the tricks Hall had us perform brought back a fond memory from childhood, the “jumping rubber band,” first described in this
magazine.
During the 2nd day’s lunch break, I ventured across the street from the hotel (Hyatt Regency) to explore the historic Buffalo Savings Bank (now M&T Center). Strikingly beautiful, it’s certainly the most beautiful bank I’ve ever visited. I happen to be a client of the current business, so I made a cash withdrawal at the counter to experience the elegance. Looking up into the bank’s gilded dome, I saw the twelve astrological symbols adorning sixteen gores. (Four of the symbols are used twice. Apparently the duplicates correspond to the change of seasons.)
That wasn’t the only circumstantial “wink and nod” against our gathering of skeptics that I noticed. Our hotel omitted 13 from its floor numbering. (During my elevator rides, I joked about going to the manager and saying “Hey, a bunch of us who aren’t anti-13 are staying here for several days. Can you re-number your floors while we’re here and then roll back to your superstitions after we leave?”) On one elevator ride, a few of us were talking about a ceiling leak on the top floor. “Maybe a UFO zapped the roof,” I joked. After everyone else had departed, my remaining co-rider, a 20-ish hotel maid, told me that she’d seen and telepathically communicated with green and gray aliens. I politely asked if she was sure she hadn’t been dreaming, and she assured me no, it wasn’t a dream. (That was the end of the conversation because I’d arrived at my floor.) Even the hovering smoke alarm UFO at CFI had a counterpart in the CSICon bookstore: an unusual
power hub.
Speaking of UFOs, Rob Palmer ("The Well-Known Skeptic") and I were both surprised that not a single talk on that very topical subject was scheduled.
As Tom Bridgman mentioned in his article, the Friday afternoon topics included “Wolfmasking,” dedicated to solving the IT security problem described in this brief
video from Brian Brushwood, using this approach.
The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe live podcast that afternoon still hasn’t been posted online as of five weeks later. (As it turned out, that was the last episode with Evan Bernstein, an original SGU cast member who resigned in late June.) Their “Skeptical Extravaganza of Special Significance” that evening included a remarkable video about the “McGurk effect,” similar to this
excerpt of a 2010 episode of BBC’s Horizons TV series.
I enjoyed Saturday’s luncheon with Bill Nye, Michael Mann, and Peter Hotez. I was surprised when CFI President/CEO Robyn Blumner took the first couple of minutes on stage with her guests to ask them, “Briefs or boxers?” But then the important topics of the day were discussed, and some questions were taken from the audience.
I had the opportunity to chat with each of them after the luncheon. With Dr. Hotez, I followed up on his comment that a half-dozen papers on the zoonotic spillover hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 were published in peer-reviewed journals, but none on the lab leak hypothesis. I wondered if the Chinese government’s lack of cooperation with the World Health Organization’s investigations might impair access to lab leak evidence more than access to zoonotic spillover evidence. He agreed about the lack of cooperation, but said it affected all aspects of the investigations. Later, Dr. Mann and I commiserated over seemingly botched political opportunities in 2009, when the White House and Congress, including a filibuster-proof 60 senators, couldn't produce significant greenhouse-gas limiting legislation or binding international agreements.
Of Bill Nye, whom I see fairly regularly at Planetary Society events in DC, I asked a favor. Would he say hello to one of my colleagues, also named Bill? I explained that this other Bill is one of the operators of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. If/when something goes awry on the spacecraft, his phone is paged. What makes his paging unique is that it’s an excerpt of the theme song to Bill Nye the Science Guy. Mr. Nye kindly agreed. Unfortunately, the call rang through to voicemail, but Nye left a playful message for the other Bill, something like, “Hi Bill, take good care of LRO, we need to find that water ice on the Moon!” (The other Bill called me back shortly afterward…he’d gotten a big kick out of the surprise voicemail.)
I also asked Nye if he’d be interested in seeing Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Disclosure Day, playing at 10 PM at a theater just a short walk from the hotel. He declined, saying he was “pretty wiped out.” (I’d already realized this was unlikely to work because his “fireside chat” with Stephen Hupp was scheduled to last until 9:30.)
Alas, none of the other people I invited would embrace the irony of a bunch of skeptics, celebrating the 50th anniversary of organized skepticism, going on a lark to see this particular film derived from credulous beliefs. I ended up going alone. And I really mean alone…I think this was the first time I’d ever been the only person in a movie show. To reduce the likelihood of dozing, I actually stood for the entire (145-minute) flick.
As the film began, I was disappointed to see cliches from a director who should know better: the bad guy has a British accent, and we first see his face lit from below, just in case we can’t be sure if he’s evil. The exposition is delivered without flair or imagination. And the actors aren’t mimicking human conversation. It’s the usual stylized fakey talk that’s unfortunately been popular in Hollywood productions for a while. The overly-long movie could easily have been shortened to about 2 hours. On the positive side, NCAS members will be amused to know that much of the action takes place locally. (There’s even an unintentionally hilarious highway sign indicating how many miles to Silver Spring, Maryland, the notoriously sprawling region that would never be listed on a mileage sign.) Overall, Disclosure Day is basically an inferior remake of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, featuring characters puzzled by what’s happened to themselves while obsessively traveling to their objective.
I enjoyed the Sunday Speakers Session, especially the talks by Timothy J. Redmond and Pamela Brunskill. During Ms. Brunskill’s talk, she referenced
The World Press Freedom Index, where the US currently ranks 64th!
On Sunday afternoon, I participated in the Niagara Falls Excursion & “Maid of the Mist” Boat Ride with Brian Dunning & Kenny Biddle, who emceed trivia contests for us during our bus rides to/from the Falls. While we were waiting in line for the boat, mere minutes from receiving our ponchos, a biblical-rated deluge struck. (Perhaps a final circumstantial “wink and nod” against our gathering of skeptics?) All of us would’ve preferred not to be totally soaked, but we had a good time.
On Sunday evening, I visited the McKinley Memorial, not far from the Convention Center, and then rode a bus from there towards a residential neighborhood (Park Meadow) to visit the site where President McKinley was fatally wounded. In 1901, the Pan-American Exposition occupied the area. Currently, the site has a marker placed by the Buffalo Historical Society fastened to a rock, surrounded by a small, well-tended garden. An American flag flies at the top of an adjacent pole. All of this is in the median of Fordham Drive, lined with homes that were built during 1910-1920.
During my solemn visit, thoughts of SkepTourism never crossed my mind. Only later did I realize that the site qualifies in the category of the so-called “Curse of Tippecanoe,” the pattern in which presidents elected in years ending in zero died in office. I’ve now visited all four of the sites where US presidents were fatally wounded.
In closing, I wish CSI, Skeptical Inquirer, and the modern skeptical movement a happy 50th anniversary! There are many accomplishments to be proud of and much work to be done. I’m glad I was able to share in the commemoration with so many talented and dedicated people, and look forward to seeing many of them again next year.
