"My friend has had so much plastic surgery, he willed his body to pseudoscience." Ba dum tssshhh!

OK, bad joke. But what is pseudoscience? What are the danger signs? How can we best avoid magical thinking? How much doubt is too much doubt? And when someone hints at a conspiracy, and your private crank-o-meter start red-lining, are you being fair?

Because conspiracies happen, right?

Join us for a light survey of the many swamps and pitfalls to critical thinking. Respected panelists will include Shane J. Trimmer, local skeptic-activist; Glenn Branch, Deputy Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE); Liam McDaid, Sacramento City College professor of astronomy; Sarah Strand, CSUS professor of neuroscience; and possibly Bob Carroll, author of the Skeptic's Dictionary.

We've met crackpots, we know crackpots, there's some crackpot in all of us, and yes, experts can be wrong. "Fringe" ideas have included continental drift, powered flight, ball lightning, meteor falls. They scoffed at Einstein. Gems hide in the sewage. But, is that the whole story? Don't let rank crankism happen to you! Come to this meeting, listen, participate, have fun, and be ready to talk about your own encounters with pseudoscience.

AOF thanks the Sacramento Area Skeptics for planning this meeting. A great, non-cranky group, do check them out.