In March, The Well-Known Skeptic (Rob Palmer) announced the 2024 call for papers for the opportunity to speak at CSICon in October. See the announcement below. Obviously, this is a great opportunity to discuss the Behrens Science Museum concept, except for one problem…

The official call for papers suggested that the article “So, You Want to Speak at CSICon?” might be helpful to applicants. The article describes Rob Palmer’s successful experience applying for the CSICon 2019 Sunday Morning Papers session. For my application, the most important information was buried in the third footnote, which was a quote from Ray Hall, the 2019 chairman of the Sunday Papers Organization Committee:

“Papers that are data driven get high priority. Sometimes I get proposals that are mostly a description of a project in the planning stages, or sometimes it seems the proposal is only an attempt to use the stage to crowd source a project. These are given much lower priority than studies that have already collected and analyzed data.”

The Behrens Science Museum is a project in the planning stages (strike one), and I would certainly appreciate your help (strike two)! So, it was clear that I needed to submit a proposal focused on collecting and analyzing data to support (or refute) the need for a skeptical museum. I have been to many science museums, and I have never noticed any exhibits that I would consider skeptical, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. I know I’m not going to prove a negative, but I had to admit that I only had anecdotes to support the need for the Behrens Science Museum.

So, I decided that my proposal for a CSCCon talk would not be about the Behrens Science Museum. Instead, it would be about my search for skepticism in science museums. After a few tweaks with the organizers, my proposal was accepted, and I will be speaking at CSICon on October 27, 2024!