Monterey County Skeptics Presents

SkeptiCamp 2026

January 9-11, 2026
El Gabilan Library
Salinas, CA

Meet the Speakers

Come for the talks but stay for the community

Speaker

Amy Sue Bix

Free Energy, Manufactured Hurricanes, and 9/11 Jet Fuel: Why Skeptics Should Care About Pseudo-Engineering

Bio: Professor of History at Iowa State University. Her 2013 book ‘Girls Coming to Tech!’: A History of American Engineering Education for Women (MIT Press) has won three major awards, including the 2015 Margaret Rossiter Prize from the History of Science Society. Bix has written widely on many topics in the history of science, technology, and medicine, including her book Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs?: America's Debate over Technological Unemployment, 1929-1981. Her book in progress is Recruiting Engineer Jane and Astrophysicist Amy: American STEM Advocacy for Girls, 1965-2015.

Speaker

Taner Edis

Beyond Checklists: Distinguishing between Real and Fake Science.

Bio: Taner Edis was born in Istanbul, 1967, to Turkish and American parents. After completing his undergraduate work at Boğaziçi University, he received his Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University in 1994, in theoretical physics. Currently professor of physics at Truman State University, his present research interests focus on the philosophy and history of science.

Organizer

Susan Gerbic

Emcee for SkeptiCamp

Susan will also be updating the group on her latest psychic mediums stings, Operation Banana Cream Pie and Operation Gobble Gotcha

American studio photographer who became known as a scientific skepticism activist, mostly for exposing people claiming to be mediums. A columnist for Skeptical Inquirer, she is the founder of Monterey County Skeptics and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Gerbic has received multiple awards for her activism including the CFI Balles Award for Critical Thinking, the James Randi Educational Foundation award, and others.

In 2010 Gerbic founded Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) a team that works to write, correct and maintain Wikipedia articles concerning science and pseudoscience, in all languages. GSoW has created over 2,000 articles which have over 200 million articles views.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Gerbic

Speaker

Kyle Polich

His talk will be - Risk: Why You're Afraid of the Wrong Things

Kyle Polich is the host of the Data Skeptic, a podcast about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science which explores these topics from a skeptical perspective.

He has presented talks in several well known skeptical forums including his SkeptiCal 2018 talk Skepticism in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. His work investigating the Missing411 conspiracy theory has appeared in Skeptical Inquirer.

Professionally, Kyle runs a small consulting group that helps small and medium-size organizations utilize machine learning, streaming data, and cloud computing.

Data Science website https://dataskeptic.com/

Speaker

Adrienne Hill

Spirit Photography and Pareidolia

and

Annoyingly Dumb Health Demonstrations on social media.

is a retired high school mathematics teacher turned active participant in the skeptic community. Since 2019, she has been an editor for Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) and serves as a board member for Susan Gerbic’s non-profit, About Time Projects. Adrienne regularly reports for The Skeptic Zone Podcast and has appeared on Skeptoid, Squaring the Strange, and The Thinking Atheist Podcasts. She has worked as a researcher and has appeared in videos on Coleman Watt’s Think This Through YouTube Channel. She has contributed articles to The Skeptic (Australia), Skeptical Inquirer, and AIPT Comics.

https://www.zonegiggler.ca/

Speaker

Milos Radakovich

MARS: history, exploration, maybe colonization, and the possibility of life. Humanity has had a fascination with the red planet for thousands of years. It is the only planet solely populated by robots, and we are the first generation in the history of the solar system to possibly visit our rusty cosmic neighbor.

Science Educator & Coastal Biologist for more than 50 yrs. On-board Naturalist for Celebrity Cruises Widely recognized for his work in education and conservation, Milos has received the MBNMS Educator of the Year award (1998), the AMBAG Citizen Award (1996), and the Environmental Hero award (2001), presented by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

https://www.expeditions.com/about/expedition-team/milos-radakovich

Speaker

Mano Singham

The Death of Free Will: The theoretical arguments and experimental evidence against it

Mano Singham obtained his B.Sc. in physics (First Class Honors) from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He worked at the University of Colombo, University of Rochester, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and at Case Western Reserve University. His research interests have been in intermediate energy physics, education, theories of knowledge, and the history and philosophy of science. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

His latest book THE GREAT PARADOX OF SCIENCE: Why its conclusions can be relied upon even though they cannot be proven was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. His other books are GOD VS. DARWIN: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom (2009) (that deals with how challenges to the teaching of evolution in schools have themselves evolved as a result of repeated setbacks in the courts), THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP IN U. S. EDUCATION: Canaries in the Mine (2005) (that deals with the educational achievement gap between white and black students), and THE QUEST FOR TRUTH: Scientific Progress and Religious Beliefs (2000). Since 2005, he has maintained a blog that deals with a variety of topics including science, politics, and religion.

It can be read at https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/

Speaker

Leonard Tramiel

His talk: Interesting and surprising facts about Astronomy.

Tramiel received his bachelor of science degree in physics from Santa Clara University in 1976 and earned his master of arts, master of philosophy, and doctorate of philosophy degrees—all in physics—from Columbia University. He worked in the Columbia Astrophysics Lab under advisor Professor Gary Chanan, now at the University of California at Irvine.

Fresh out of graduate school, Tramiel joined his father and two brothers when his father bought Atari from Warner Communications in 1984. For the next 12 years, Tramiel was involved in the development of Atari’s products as vice president of software, managing an internal group of a dozen programmers while interacting worldwide with software developers and contract programmers.

Since retiring from Atari at age 42, he has been concentrating on advocating science education (See Forbes magazine, Oct. 30, 2000, for his work to improve the quality of science textbooks with the California Department of Education). Tramiel has also been a volunteer eighth-grade astronomy teacher for the past 10 years and has been volunteering at the Chabot Space and Science Center since 2000.

“I think that CFI’s mission of fostering a society based on reason and values is wonderful, in fact vital, for the future of humanity,” Tramiel said.

🔥SkeptiCamp 2026

Approximate Schedule of Events

Start the year off right.

Join us for a weekend of learning and community

Friday January 9, 2025

6:00-9:00 pm

Meet and Greet London Bridge Pub Located at the smaller Fisherman's Wharf, meet in the back of the pub

Saturday January 10th
AND
Sunday January 11th

El Gabilan Library

1400 North Main St
Salinas, California

Plenty of free parking on site.
Coffee, snacks and simple lunch will be provided.
Feel free to bring snacks to share with others.
Free event
Donations appreciated

FREE EVENT Donations are appreciated to cover our costs

Cash - Check - Paypal

Saturday 8:30 am

Setup and mingle

Saturday 9:30 am

Opening remarks

Saturday 10 am

Adrienne Hill - Spirit Photography and Pareidolia

Saturday 11:00 am

Saturday 11:45 am

Mano Singham - The Death of Free Will: The theoretical arguments and experimental evidence against it

Lunch

Saturday 1:30 pm

Taner Edis - Beyond Checklists: Distinguishing between Real and Fake Science

Saturday 2:15 pm

Amy Bix - Free Energy, Manufactured Hurricanes, and 9/11 Jet Fuel: Why Skeptics Should Care About Pseudo-Engineering

Saturday 3:30 pm

Milos Radakovich - MARS: history, exploration, maybe colonization, and the possibility of life.

Saturday 4:15 pm

Susan Gerbic - Operation Banana Cream Pie

Saturday 4:45 pm

Cleanup and be out by 5:30

Saturday Dinner at ...

Michael's Grill & Taqueria

321 Main St, Salinas 93901

Yelp reviews

SUNDAY tentative schedule

Leonard Tramiel: Interesting and surprising facts about Astronomy.

Susan Gerbic - Operation Gobble Gotcha: wherein we attempt to catch a psychic medium.

Adrienne Hill - Annoyingly Dumb Health Demonstrations on social media.

We have library from 10-2 and we are arranging more talks for that day. Followed by a visit to the Salinas Valley Health Hospital Medical History Museum. Then we will have a place set up for dinner and socializing.

Sunday January 11, 2026

TBD

SVMHS Medical History Museum

Sunday January 11, 2026

TBD

SkeptiCamp 2026

January 9-11, 2026 El Gabilan Library Salinas, CA

Meet the Speakers

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Approximate Schedule of Events

Friday January 9, 2025

Saturday January 10th AND Sunday January 11th

El Gabilan Library

1400 North Main St Salinas, California

Sunday January 11, 2026

Sunday January 11, 2026

January 9-11, 2026
El Gabilan Library
Salinas, CA

Saturday January 10th
AND
Sunday January 11th

1400 North Main St
Salinas, California