At last month’s SitP, we had an author as our guest and we asked a lot of fantastic questions. Let’s do it even better this time! Check out her web site and read this sample (from a NY Times op-ed), or better yet read the whole book. It is interesting and important even if it is scary enough to be a Halloween selection.

See the previous post for more about the book.

RSVP on our Facebook event page.

Her talk will tell the story of our electric infrastructure–where it came from, how it works today, and how it will have to change to meet the needs of a new generation.

Ms Koerth-Baker has written a new book called “Before the Lights Go Out” about

“some of the big-picture nuance that gets left out of the day-to-day chatter about energy. What are the big trends that will shape what we can and can’t do over the next 40 years? How does our electricity infrastructure work, and why is that infrastructure a lot more interesting (and a lot more complicated) than most laypeople realize? There’s a lot of storytelling, and some fun and funny history of how our current infrastructure came to be. There’s critical analysis explaining both why we have to solve our energy problem, and why solving it is going to be harder than many climate hawks want to believe. In general, the book is meant to make a confusing subject accessible and offer a more nuanced perspective on a topic that tends to be very ideology driven.”

The book will be published April 10. (Update: Some advanced copies will be available.)

Several of the back-cover reviews are by people who should be very familiar to members of the Boston Skeptics Book Club. Mary Roach (Stiff, Spook and Packing for Mars) called it, “a fine, cracking read.” Carl Zimmer (Parasite Rex) says, “Maggie Koerth-Baker is one of the most innovative science writers at work today. Rather than settling for cheap flash, she burrows deep into many of the biggest mysteries in science and technology and comes out with wonderfully clear explanations”.

Many of the subjects that skeptics deal with, like ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot and ESP, are amusing examples of fallacious reasoning and illuminate interesting flaws in perception and the human brain, but, except in the cases of rare individuals, have no important effect on most people’s lives. But a few subjects, such as energy generation, storage and distribution, are areas where science and technology meet society in profound and important ways. I would class it with alternative medicine and religious fundamentalism and their interference with science (particularly in their denial of biology and evolution) and AGW denialism as important topics for applying critical thinking.

When discussing these topics, it is essential to start with a firm factual basis, which is what Ms Koerth-Baker’s book promises to provide.

Please come hear this important talk.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is both a freelancer and the science editor at BoingBoing.net, one of the most widely read blogs in the U.S. Her work has appeared in print publications like Discover, Popular Science, and New Scientist, and online at websites like Scientific American and National Geographic News.

We will be meeting a week later than usual, on April 2, at 7 PM at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square. RSVP on our Facebook event page.

Meanwhile, if this subject is too depressing (it shouldn’t be, since we can and will eventually solve it, the only questions being at what cost and who pays), look at the lizards!

A much better picture of Ethan

We will be meeting at the usual time and place (more or less), Upstairs at Tommy Doyle’s at 96 Winthrop Street (Harvard Square), on Monday, January 30, 2012 at 7:00 PM.

RSVP on our Facebook event page.

P.S. You can also follow Ethan on Twitter and join his Facebook fan page.

We’re a week early this month (due to the dread “Ch” word), but at the usual time and place, Tommy Doyle’s Irish Pub in Harvard Square, 7 to 9 PM on Monday, December 19, 2011. Please bring a small, geeky, nerdy, cheap (under $10) skeptical gift so you can participate in the Swap, but if you’d rather not, then just come and socialize and laugh as the participants try to strategize. (I got an awesome pirate skull mug last year.)

RSVP on Facebook, if that’s your thing.

She will be talking about the “Black Athena Controversy”, the notion that Greek culture was stolen or borrowed from Egypt, and her attempts to talk about evidence-based history in the era of post-modernism and political correctness.

If this subject is new to you, as it is to me, having skillfully avoided academia in the 1980s and 90s, I recommend doing some background reading, or at least a bit of googling, in advance. (One of the Amazon reviews of one of her books compared arguing with Afro-centrists to arguing with anti-vaxxers, a conflict I’m more familiar with.)

We’re back to our usual place and time this month, upstairs at Tommy Doyle’s on Monday, November 28 at 7 PM.

Feel free to sign up on our Facebook event page.

[*] which she edited with Guy Rogers, though for some reason the Amazon page doesn’t mention him.

Kimball and Mark will make a brief presentation followed by lots of hanging out and talking. For some ideas of the discussion topics, be sure to check out Mark’s podcast QuackCast and Kimball’s Naturowatch site, as well as SBM.

(Be forewarned! Tommy Doyle’s basement doesn’t have the state-of-the-art multimedia recording facilities of their upstairs room, so this may be your only chance to see this dynamic duo. Don’t miss it!)

Could there be a better lead-in to Zombie and Vampire Season than the inside scoop on working in Washington?

We will be meeting at our regular time and place, at 7 PM on Monday, September 26. 2011, upstairs at Tommy Doyle’s, 96 Winthrop St in Harvard Square.

Agree or disagree with the proposition the the Skeptical and Secular Movements should be more involved in social activism[*], this promises to be an extremely interesting talk.

Date: Monday, August 29
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Upstairs at Tommy Doyle’s
96 Winthrop St (Harvard Square)
Cambridge, MA

[*] If you disagree, you’re wrong :-)

Seriously dudes, Santa God.

After Dan’s performance, we will be bringing back our Yankee Swap, which was a great success last year. If you wish to participate, bring a wrapped present of a geeky, scientific, blasphemous, or otherwise awesome nature (nothing pricey–under $10 is a good guideline). Pressies…I can’t wait!

We will be at our usual location and time: 7 pm at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square, on Monday, December 20th.

Don’t forget to rsvp on facebook!

See you all there! Happy Festivus, everyone.