The Group Discussion Meeting, April 19

Jeff, Brook, Fred, Rochelle, Dave, Ted, Craig and I gathered to discuss: "There seems to be a preponderance of college educated, upper middle class white males in North American skepticism. Is this truly the case? If so, what can we do to make skepticism appealing to a more diverse audience?"

Luckily, our group (representing more than one gender, race, religion, generation, education level and profession) agreed that this statistical bias, though true, is certainly not intentional. We feel that skeptics simply have a mind set that correlates with scientifically trained (or computer trained) people. The scientific and engineering professions, for a multitude of problematic reasons, are more likely to be educated, white, male and upper middle class. We hope that the percentages of other groups in these areas continues to rise over time.

We agreed that diversity in skeptics (or biological systems) is good and we should make some effort to get more balance. We discussed "casting our net a little farther" -- particularly to young people. Brook, a female teenager, told us that her private school is very open to different people groups and there is an even level of scientific participation between genders. Rochelle said that when she was in high school, women were being steered away from science. We discussed DeeAnne Wymer's apropos [February 96] Phactum article, "Why are there so few women skeptics?" -- which can be found here.

It was agreed that skepticism's lack of popularity (compared to fringe claims) lies in a lack of excitement. We agreed that a spokesperson with mass appeal like the late Carl Sagan can do much to bring the message to all corners of humanity. We came up with a number of ideas to reach a wider audience, including: moving closer to the city, getting skeptical publications in book stores and libraries, having skeptics as mentors or guest speakers in High School science clubs, better Internet promotion, have PhACT appear on low rent cable shows, have Barnes and Noble book stores host a PhACT presentation, etc.

PhACT has had a number of good speakers at meetings, but it's still refreshing to see the audience really participate. In our group, everyone had a fair chance to speak their mind. We probably raised more questions than answers. It will be interesting to see if we can become not just bigger, but more diverse in coming years.