Witam, Bartek is interested in opening a discussion list on adjani for something like a "sceptics' society". Sceptics' societies around the world are a mix of scientists and ordinary citizens curious about claims of events seen outside of the laboratory which seem to violate the known laws of physics, e.g. walking on hot coals and not having your feet burnt, UFOs, crop circles, etc. Have a look at http://www.skeptic.com and you'll see that even the aliens are convinced that the skeptics exist ;). The goal is to show to society that scientists are not just "dogmatic believers" who refuse to believe in events outside of our "narrow-minded" way of thinking, and to treat the claims seriously, and this way educate the public into the scientific method, maybe help develop better intuition of statistics and probability among ordinary people. There is a prize of Aus$100 000 (about 250 000 PLN) waiting since 1980 for someone able to prove they have psychic or paranormal powers: http://www.skeptics.com.au/features/challenge.htm There is also a US$1M prize (about 4 000 000 PLN): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi#The_.241_million_challenge Some astronomers (e.g. Jayant Narlikar in India) are strongly supportive of skeptics' societies. And, who knows, a skeptics society might just possibly discover a real effect showing the next step beyond the Standard Models of physics and cosmology. (OK, personally i'm rather sceptical, but my mind is open, in principle...) Since this *could* be controversial, and i'm trying to implement consensus-method decision-making, here is the proposal: ###################################################################### PROPOSAL: new list for skeptics discussion DEADLINE Thu 11 Nov 18:00 We'll open a mailing list on adjani with a name like sceptyk-l at cosmo.torun.pl and Bartek will be the list admin. Purpose of list: discussion group to see if people in Toruń, especially scientists, are willing to spend the time setting up properly controlled experiments, writing them up properly, doing the proper statistical analyses, communicating them in public meetings etc., and communicating with other skeptics' groups around the world - especially if someone wants to try for the 250.000 PLN Australian prize money or the 4 000 000 PLN James Randi Foundation prize money. ###################################################################### Like any discussion group, IMHO it is most likely to be efficient if it is self-organising, and it will only work if there are enough people willing to spend enough time on it. But it can't hurt trying. pozdr boud