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Randi welcoming the Amazing Adventurers to the Isaac Asimov Library
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Last night, we had a reception at the James Randi Educational Foundation for those folks who are joining us on the Amazing Adventure 5: Skeptics of the Caribbean, which sets sail today. We are off for a week of fun and skepticism, with around 100 of Randi's best friends, including JREF staff like Jeff Wagg, Bart Farkas, and Brandon Thorp, noted skeptics such as Tim Farley, Mark Edward, and Brian Dunning, and beloved members of the JREF community like Kitty Mervine and Naomi Baker. I am happy that my partner, Thomas Donnelly, is able to join us, despite his insanely busy law school schedule.
This is a really international group: one man flew in from Singapore, one flew in from Australia, several from the UK, one from Northern Ireland, and a number from Canada. And there are three folks from Greece attending as well. I think this is also a very young crowd, relative to many other skeptics gatherings I have attended. Most people coming on the cruise are in their 30s or 40s, with a few teenagers, and more than a dozen in their twenties. I like seeing how the worldview that prizes reason, science and humanism that has been advanced for decades by Randi is inspiring enough to younger people for them to spend their spring break in the company of their fellow skeptics.
One thing that struck me last night at the reception is that these people are not just organized around the things they don't believe in. Even as skeptics, they seem to believe, at least in each other: there was a palpable sense of community at the party. Everyone knew each others' stories, childrens' names, travails and triumphs of each others' lives. For many at the party it seemed like a family reunion. Even though there were a lot of new faces (one young man is going on the JREF cruise as a birthday present from his parents, and there are new JREF Forum members for whom this is their first in-person skeptical event, etc.), there was a surprising number of people for whom this Amazing Adventure is just one of many they have enjoyed: Don and Nancy Lacey, Adam Levenstein, Gail Knapp, Mel and Gerri Kirschner, and Susan Gerbic-Forsyth, for instance, have been on a number of these JREF vacations. David Craig has been on all of them, in fact. And these folks know how to have fun. As they say, "skeptics do it with their eyes open," and so we may just be opening some eyes on our latest Amazing Adventure into the known universe of Caribbean sunshine and good times.
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Jeff Wagg instructs attendees on what to expect on the Amazing Adventure 5 (answer: swashbuckling)
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I got to take the picture since I was not going on the trip.
Paul