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Promoting Critical Thinking and Scientific Understanding 20/20 Since 1987 Friday, April 19, 2024 The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories Presented by Zelda Gilbert, R etired professor of psychology May 4, 2024, 1:30pm Central Library Barbara M. Donnellan Auditorium 1015 North Quincy Street Arlington, VA [ map ] [ directions ] (Virginia Square-GMU Metro station) FREE admission – Everyone welcome, members and non-members Also a YouTube Live Event with Q and A NCASVideo YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/Du5JWbvSAjc (corrected URL) Dr. Gilbert will discuss how the tools of modern psychology can be used to explore the prevalence, motivations, and content of historical and contemporary conspiracy theories. This will include conspiracy theories concerning such things as Lincoln’s assassination, chemtrails, the destruction of the battleship Maine, election fraud, and space lasers from orbit. Concepts such as existential, epistemic and socio-psychological motivations will be defined and applied to various theories, providing the audience with the tools to do their own analyses. Finally, audience members will be invited to create and evaluate their own conspiracy theories. Zelda Gilbert is a retired professor of psychology with over 40 years experience in higher education. She currently lectures on political psychology, conspiracy theories, and other topics, mostly for the continuing education Silver Frogs program at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. She completed a doctorate in counseling psychology at the University of Kentucky and studied political psychology at UCLA. Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Tuesday, April 02, 2024 Cancer Risk Assessment, Its Wretched History and Its Impact on Public Health Presented by Edward J. Calabrese, Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Amherst. April 13, 2024, 1:30-3:00pm On YouTube, ( https://youtube.com/live/3R8YuZXUklI?feature=share ) The historical foundations of cancer risk assessment were based on fundamental scientific errors that were never corrected, all within the framework of an extraordinary appeal to the authority of the radiation genetics community, led by Hermann J Muller. Even though these individuals were greatly talented and accomplished, they were driven by ideological and self-serving professional biases that would lead to both falsification of the research record and suppression of key scientific findings, all in an effort to establish the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for hereditary and cancer risk assessment, replacing the threshold dose response model. This troubling history has now been revealed in a long series of peer reviewed publications by the author and summarized in a 22-episode documentary by the Health Physics Society* ( https://hps.org/hpspublications/historylnt/episodeguide.html ). This troubling history remained hidden from the regulatory agencies around the globe since their inception. These groups simply and uncritically accepted a flawed and corrupt history, assuming that it was accurate and reliable. Yet, this path of historical ignorance led the US EPA, and other national regulatory agencies, to accept a dishonest foundation upon which to base and frame cancer risk assessment, terribly failing in their public service mission. This untenable situation has placed a continuing stranglehold on the actions of all regulatory agencies worldwide, improperly guiding its philosophies, policies and practices down to the present time. (*Note that the views expressed in these videos do not necessarily represent official positions of the Health Physics Society.) Edward J. Calabrese is a Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Amherst. Dr. Calabrese has researched extensively in the area of host factors affecting susceptibility to pollutants, and is the author of over 1,000 papers in scholarly journals, as well as more than 10 books. Dr. Calabrese was awarded the 2009 Marie Curie Prize from the World Council of Nuclear Workers for his body of work on hormesis. He was the recipient of the International CCN Society’s Springer award for 2010. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from McMaster University in 2013. In 2014 he was awarded the Petr Beckmann Award from Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. Dr. Calabrese was awarded the G. William Morgan Lectureship Award and the Robert S. Landauer, Sr., Lectureship Award in 2022 from the Health Physics Society. Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Shadow of a Doubt - March 2024 Lecture March 9 - Brian Dunning presents a discussion of "The UFO Movie They Don’t Want You to SEE" Eldrich investigations and a discount for NCAS April NCAS Lecture - Edward Calabrese will discuss "linear no-threshold" (LNT) model, an ionizing radiation dose-response model used in radiation protection. How accurate is the model for estimating cancer risk at low doses? Saturday, April 13 at 1:30 PM ET, live on the NCASVideo YouTube channel. March PhACT lecture - "Explorations into the Age of Fishes and the Origin of Limbed Vertebrates" March Bay Area Skeptics - Paul A. Offit, MD, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as well as the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, will present "COVID Myths: And the Hits Just Keep on Comin’." Videos from CSICON 2023 "Spring Forward" - NCAS discussion of daylight savings time controversy NCAS membership Shadow Light Time to Renew See the complete March 2024 Shadow Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Tuesday, February 27, 2024 A Discussion of "The UFO Movie THEY Don’t Want You to See" YouTube Live Event for Q and A Brian Dunning Executive Producer / Writer / Presenter, The UFO Movie THEY Don’t Want You to See Saturday, March 9, 1:30pm US/Eastern (UTC-05:00) NCASVideo YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/1SKKYgY9P88 This month, NCAS presents a different kind of event. We invite you to watch The UFO Movie THEY Don’t Want You to See BEFORE March 9, 2024 (see below for how to watch). Then join us on Saturday, March 9 at 1:30 PM ET for an online Q & A with Executive Producer / Writer / Presenter Brian Dunning. From the film’s website: "In an age when misinformation, alternative facts, and conspiracy theories have become mainstream, UFOs have risen to become one of the most-talked about pop culture phenomena. With all of this noise, how can we expect anyone to know how much of this is true? What is in our skies? What do we know, and how do we know it? And most importantly: Are we being visited? Science does have most of these answers, and we’re working on answering the rest of them. Featuring experts in cosmology, physics, and image analysis, The UFO Movie THEY Don’t Want You to See will lay out for you exactly what we know and how we know it." Science writer Brian Dunning is a documentary filmmaker and the host of Skeptoid , the award-winning weekly science podcast. Since 2006, Skeptoid has been revealing the true science behind popular misinformation and urban legends. Dunning’s recent movies include the educational film Principles of Curiosity (2017) and the feature documentary Science Friction (2022) revealing the deceptive editing that sometimes happens to science experts on mainstream television programs. He is a member of the National Association of Science Writers. Full information about this documentary, including streaming services that carry it, can be found at https://theufo.movie To watch the film for free (with ads), use this link: https://youtu.be/t72uvS7EJT4 Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Older Posts Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) YouTube Library About NCAS NCAS Calendar...