I Am A Grassroots Skeptic: Reed Esau
Reed Esau is an advocate of open conferencing among skeptics. He helped to launch the open skeptic conference format called “SkeptiCamp” in 2007. In this three-part post, he explains how SkeptiCamp got started, and takes us through its development to the present day.
PART I – BECOMING A GRASSROOTS SKEPTIC
This week marks my third anniversary as a grassroots skeptic.
For more than two decades I had been enthralled by the value that contemporary science-based skepticism had brought to my life. The works of Carl Sagan (among others) rescued me from wishful thought and provided me the tools required to think clearly and avoid self-delusion. It fostered a deep appreciation for how science could help me understand the world as it is, rather than how I might wish it to be.
I’d known of the skeptical movement and occasionally read a book and subscribed to its magazines. A decade back I had even attended a lecture by James Randi during one of his visits to Boulder, Colorado.
Although I identified intellectually as a skeptic, I perceived the movement as distant and inaccessible. It never crossed my mind to think that I could be part of an effort to promote skepticism. I wasn’t an academic, scientist or magician, and I doubted that I had anything to offer or a place to fit in. I didn’t possess any of the specialized domain knowledge on the topics discussed in the skeptical literature. The barriers to entry appeared to stand sufficiently high that it did not seem worth the effort to pursue. As a result, I assumed a passive role like so many of my fellow skeptics, a role I would retain for more than two decades.
Contrast this with my experience in the tech community, with its comparatively low barrier to entry. Someone who starts hacking code in his parents’ basement can grow within the community and eventually stand to make a substantive contribution. It’s a culture with a focus on learning and sharing information, with routine interaction among professionals and hobbyists, experts and amateurs, the experienced and the newbie.
In late 2006, my friend and fellow skeptic Aaron Kurland persuaded me to join him in Las Vegas for The Amazing Meeting (TAM), my first skeptic conference. As expected, the speakers were informative and entertaining, but this remained a conference in the traditional mold — a lecture-oriented event where my role as a passive skeptic went largely unchallenged by the event’s programming.
However, there was something in the air, something that would eventually challenge my passive role. At some point during the event it dawned on me that the skeptical movement was restructuring, driven by the very tools created by the tech culture.
Shortly before I’d gone to TAM, I joined a local “Meetup” group in Denver, one of the newer skeptic groups on this early social network. By the time I arrived at TAM I realized that our group wasn’t an anomaly, but rather part of a whole new branch of skepticism, a “social” branch, free of activist expectations. The tools built around the service not only made starting such a group a trivial exercise, but dramatically eased the effort of finding new members and scheduling events.
This social branch of skepticism swung into full action on the Saturday evening of TAM, with a large party thrown by Skepchick Rebecca Watson. As expected, a portion of the conversation flowed around the day’s programming and topics unrelated to skepticism. However, you didn’t have to throw a stone far to hit someone speaking passionately about their new podcast or web project. It may not have seemed like much to others, but for me it signaled the start of a new era in the skeptical movement, one where the rank-and-file skeptics were grasping larger opportunities and seeking to employ new social tools like Meetup and maturing tools like blogs and podcasts to pull skepticism out of its decline.
This was not what I expected. This was not the skepticism that I had known. This was not a skepticism that had to fight for space at the magazine rack at the bookstore. This was a skepticism where an expanding array of tools for communication and collaboration could extend our reach and tap into the knowledge and experience of our community in unprecedented ways.
Though I may not have been fully aware of it at the time, TAM 5 was where I raised my expectations of the skeptical movement and my fellow skeptics. No longer should we be content to accept that skepticism remain an intellectual backwater, but should instead look to build a popular movement that could add value to the life of anyone around the world, much as skeptics like Carl Sagan had done for so many of us.
And what blew me away was that I realized that I could contribute to this effort. I could become a grassroots skeptic.
Next post: “Part II: The Genesis of SkeptiCamp”
Category: Skeptical Groups
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