Parental Note:
Rated R for sexuality, language and some violent content

Interesting side note, Matthew Chapman is also the great-great grandson of Charles Darwin!

Douglas Krueger is an American philosopher, academic and author. He is best known as a proponent of atheism and an advocate of skepticism regarding supernatural and paranormal claims. Krueger has been a featured speaker at numerous atheist and humanist conventions and gatherings and is a co-founder of the Fayetteville Freethinkers, a secular humanist organization in Fayetteville, Arkansas. His book, What is Atheism: A Short Introduction, is a concise and hard-hitting—though some have claimed unfairly biased—critique of religious belief, especially Christianity. In addition, he has discussed his atheistic views on numerous radio shows and participated in more than a dozen debates across the United States on the existence of God and secular ethics.

Cindy Cooper with Camp Quest Oklahoma will be giving a brief speech talking about Camp Quest Oklahoma and the importance of secular education and camps for kids.

From the Camp Quest Oklahoma website:

The purpose of Camp Quest is to provide children of freethinking parents a residential summer camp dedicated to improving the human condition through rational inquiry, critical and creative thinking, scientific method, self-respect, ethics, competency, democracy, free speech, and the separation of religion and government.

Through our programs we seek to:

• Build a community for freethinking families
• Foster curiosity, questioning, and critical thinking
• Encourage reason and compassion as foundations of an ethical, productive and fulfilling life
• Raise awareness of positive contributions made by atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheistic people to our society
• Promote an open dialogue about metaphysical questions that is marked by challenging each other’s ideas while at the same time treating each other with respect
• Demonstrate atheism and humanism as positive, family-friendly worldview

Scott Austin, PhD

PhD, Physics, Arizona State University (1995)

Personal Web Page: http://faculty.uca.edu/saustin/Astronomy/scott_austin.html

Research: Variable stars, spectroscopy, photometry, asteroid astrometry.

Recent Publications:

Late-Type Near-Contact Eclipsing Binary [HH97] FS Aur-79, Austin, S. J., Robertson, J. W., Tycner, C., Campbell T., and Honeycutt, R. K. 2007, The Astronomical Journal, Volume 133, Issue 5, pp. 1934-1946

An Eclipsing Near Contact Short Period Binary in the Field of FS Aur, Robertson, J. W., Austin, S. J., Campbell, T., Hoskins, J., 2004, Information Bulletin on Variable Stars, 5536

Professional Biography:

B.S. in physics in 1987.
PhD. in physics in 1995.

Scott took his current position at the University of Central Arkansas in the Department of Physics and Astronomy starting in the fall of 2000 and was granted tenure in the spring of 2006.  He has renovated the UCA Observatory so that a variety of research projects are being done with the new 0.35-m telescope.  These projects include near-earth asteroid astrometry, emission star spectroscopy, and variable-star time-series-photometry.  Scott does public outreach with the UCA Observatory and the 60-seat UCA Planetarium.  He runs monthly public viewing nights with the observatory.  With the planetarium he produces and gives shows monthly for the general public and by request for school groups.

This is my presentation for Darwin Day 2012 at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale Florida.
Each year, this event is supported by the Center for Inquiry, Florida Atheists and Secular Humanists, the Coalition for the Advancement of Science Education, and the James Randi Educational Foundation.

LogiCon Logo Contest 2012

LogiCon announces the launch of the ‘LogiCon Logo Contest 2012′. This contest is to design the Logo of 2012′s edition of LogiCon. The theme for this year is “The importance of logic, reason, and critical thinking education”, “equality for all”, and “moving forward with secularism”.

People from around the world are invited to submit their logos and vote for their favorite designs on this Facebook page. The rules of the contest are available here.

The winning entry will become the official logo of LogiCon 2012. This logo will also be used by LogiCon for shirts, flyers, Facebook, website, and many other forms of media.

Winning design will receive $50 US. The top 5 submissions to make it to the short list will also receive an honorable mention on Facebook and the LogiCon website.

You can participate in LogiCon 2012 Logo Contest by uploading your design on this page: http://facebook.com/LogiCon

Everyone can vote for their favorite design on the same facebook page by using the “LIKE” link below the image of each design. The facebook votes will be considered (among other criteria) by the selection panel in the process of choosing the winners.

The deadline for Logo Contest submissions is 21 March 2012. Voting on the facebook page will be open untill 24 March 2012.

The winner will be announced on the Facebook page and website on March 25th.

* Producer of the ‘Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism’ video series
* Regular co-host of the Magic Sandwich Show on BlogTV
* Occasional co-host on the Atheist Experience TV show
* Member of American Atheists and the Fellowship of Freethought

Aron Ra is one of the “YouTube atheists” and an advocate for rationalism in science classrooms.  He grew up in an exclusively creationist environment where he felt like a lonely outcast just for understanding evolution, let alone accepting it.  Being raised in a mostly-Mormon family encouraged him to explore other denominations and eventually non-Abrahamic spiritualism before rejecting faith-based beliefs altogether.  He was drawn into activism when the Religious Right dominated his state’s Board of Education, and began undermining education in history, health, science, and social studies.  His videos often focus on evolution and the evidence indicating an interrelated tree of life.  His series summarizing the ‘Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism’ and his subsequent series, ‘Falsifying Phylogeny’ (including the Phylogeny Challenge’) have been mirrored, featured, referenced, and recommended by many professional scientists, secularists, and educators, and has attracted more than 60,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER8cq1JO3Y8.

Past speaking topics include:

“Preferred Truth” – North Texas Skeptics
“The Evolution of Morality” – Darwin Day 2010
“The Erroneous Association of Evolution and Eugenics” – Darwin Day 2011
“What we can and cannot honestly say we know” – Atheist Community of Austin
“If only you believed like I believe, baby” – Oklahoma Freethought Convention

Tom Clark

• Located in Boston, MA
• Founder, Center for Naturalism.
• Developer of Naturalism.Org, a leading Web resource on worldview naturalism, its implications and applications.
• Author, Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses and many publications and presentations on naturalism, free will, science, addiction, and criminal and social justice.
• Host and moderator, Philosophy Café at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, MA.

Before founding the Center for Naturalism (CFN), Tom Clark was a researcher in addictions and mental health, where he worked on developing a fully naturalistic model of behavioral disorders. As director of the CFN, Tom Clark is now on the cultural cutting edge in articulating science-based naturalism as a comprehensive worldview. In his book, articles and presentations, he argues that in understanding ourselves as completely natural creatures, fully connected to and caused by our biological and social circumstances, we gain in control and compassion. Those wanting a fresh and positive perspective on secularism will enjoy Clark’s naturalistic challenges to conventional wisdom on such topics as free will, moral responsibility, criminal and social justice, addiction, and the culture wars. His engaging, fast-paced lectures will encourage students to re-think their fundamental assumptions about the self and human nature, and in so doing give them access to the abundant resources of worldview naturalism. His talks are suitable for general audiences but can be tailored for students in law, science, psychology, philosophy, religion, and social and political theory.