Oregonians for Science and Reason

Join fellow scientific skeptics and their guests at the O4SR Annual Meeting for a talk by Loren Pankratz, Ph.D. This talk is free and open to the public.

Fully developed con games can be found in the literature of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Pankratz will review the specific historical forces in which they evolved. More importantly, con games developed from the social interactions between beggars and thieves, which resulted in benefits for both. Then we identify some of the authors of the 19th century who brought con games to our awareness by exposing the tricks and traps that continue to fool the best of us.

Loren Pankratz, Ph.D. is a retired consultation psychologist for the Portland Veterans Medical Center and professor at Oregon Health Sciences University specializing medical and psychiatric syndromes, especially those related to deception in the medical setting. He has written and lectured on a wide variety of topics such as dancing manias, spiritualism, syndromes of the imagination, Greek oracles, ghosts, plagues and the Black Death, moral panics, con-games, self-deception, faith healing, self-surgery, quackery, and renaissance science. His latest book is Mysteries and Secrets Revealed. His previous book, Patients Who Deceive, released in 1998, became available in second edition in May 2021. He was a founding faculty member of the Skeptic’s Toolbox workshop and is a Fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI).

A short business meeting, including election of the Board of Directors, precedes the program.

Join Oregonians for Science and Reason (O4SR), and their guests for beer and conversation. We meet monthly on the first Sunday of the month. As other local Skeptics in the Pub groups have begun to meet in person again, the First Sunday Skeptics in the Pub, will remain virtual. Those who have joined us from out of the area or are unable to meet in person are welcome to join us online here.

Promote critical thinking. Drink beer. Smash pseudoscience. See you there!

If you are not ready to join us in person at the pub, live out of town or just want to hangout, Oregonians for Science and Reason Skeptics in the Pub continues to meet virtually once a month on the first Sunday of the month. Join us for conversation.

We are returning to in-person Skeptics in the Pub meetups! Plan to meet us at McMenamins on Agate and 19th Street in Eugene. Join us for a beer or drink of your choice, a snack and discussions on wide-ranging topics relating to science, pseudoscience and critical thinking. Conversations are informal and interesting.

Please stay home if you or anyone in your household is sick. We still make a science-based effort to avoid spreading Covid, the flu or other respiratory viruses. Let's look out for one another.

If you have enjoyed our virtual Skeptics in the Pub events, you can join us online on the first Sundays of the month at 5 PM in our Zoom room.