On 20 May on the evening we held the first club event of the Budapest branch of the Skeptic Society. Based on the plans we will hold these events at every 3rd Tuesday of the month at the Budapest Technical University. The lecturer of the first event was Zoltan Vassy psychophysicist, a well-known, controversial figure of the skeptic movement. The title of his presentation was "Materialist parapsychology".
On 8 May in the afternoon István Vágo, President of the Skeptic Society held a lecture about pesudoscience and scams at the 'Colorful Hungarian World' series organized in Lőrinci Nagykönyvtár (Lőrinci Library).
The Physical Institute of the Hungarian Technical University organizes the traditional Budapest Skeptic Conference on 16 February this year. The main theme this year will be comparison of the evolution theory and the "intelligent design" doctrine.
The first local group of the Hungarian Skeptic Society was formed at Szeged - South of Hungary. The team will run an opened skeptic club at 18:00 on every first Tuesday of the month at the Szeged Univercity in the Tamási Áron Club (downtown, Boldogasszony sugárút 6.). The first meeting will be held on 6 November 2007, with János Györgyey's startup presentation.
There is one year left to the 200 year anniversary of Charles Darwin's bith and to the 150 year anniversary of the publication of his famous book "The Origin of Life". The Skeptic Society organizes varionus programs this year again.
During the past 15 years, the Hungarian Skeptic Society felt a certain reluctance to criticize the so-called Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), primarily because of its unwillingness to take away the last hope from our unfortunate, sometimes terminally ill fellow beings. This is not, nor has it ever been our goal.
About 200 participants attended the 13th Conference of the Hungarian Skeptics at Székesfehérvár this weekend. Based on the on-site survey the best theme was the round table moderated by István Vágó about consumer protection with representatives from consumer and governmental organizations. Erno Duda Jr. received most votes as best performer with his presentation "Does natural mean healthy?".
Cool TV aired a 90 minute programme on UFOs today. The first 70 minutes were spent on absolutely stupid things, but at the rest time Tibor Soós (ex president of League of Hungarian UFO Research) and skeptic Gabor Hrasko had discussed the arguments pro and contra. Answering the question "How would you prove to others that wou had met aliens?" Hrasko answered: "I would ask them for the answer of a yet unsolved scientific question."
The European Council of Skeptical Organisations - ECSO has recently announced officially that the Hungarian Skeptics Society was chosen to host the 2009 European Skeptics conference in Budapest. The Congress is likely to be held in September 2009. That year is quite remarkable: it is the International Year of Astronomy. Also Darwin's 200th Birthday will occur on February 12, 2009 and it will be the 150th Anniversary of the publication of his famous book, On The Origin of Species.
Hungarian Skeptic Society launched a weekly column in the 48 year old Képes Újság under the title "Leave me alone charlatan". The series runs under the name of TV personnel István Vágó and the articles are written by the staff of the Skeptic Society. The press conference about the series was held recently in the Budapest Planetarium. This is the first large media centric skeptic event since the skeptic TV series ran on Hungarian ATV three years before. Readers of Képes Újság might react on the articles via postal mail, email or on the skeptic blog and summaries of them will be also pubished in the newspaper with answers.
During the weekend the European Council of Skeptical Organisations - ECSO has adopted the Hungarian Skeptic Society as member organization. The decision was made at the 13th European Skeptics Congress in Dublin, where more than 140 delegates from 13 countries discussed the hot topics about pseudoscience, ezotery and the paranormal.
We launched a lecture and debate series for the Skeptic Society members about the current topics in science and skepticism. The first lecture was held by Ernő Duda, president of Solvo Biotechnology Rt. and member of Board of the Hungarian Biotechnology Association about the history, recent developments and future of green, white and red biotechnology. According to Duda genetical engineering opens extraordinary new possibilities in helthcare, but it will also raise rather difficult social questions.