“an illustrative account”

Not all proponents of the investigation of paranormal phenomena are created equal. Some, such as the Forteans, are like skeptics in that they value reason and evidence. They differ in that they are generally more concerned with evidence that may be overlooked or missed, especially that concerning strange phenomena. It’d be unfair and inaccurate to consider them credulous believers.

A group of Forteans in Chicago hopes to do with BarCamp what skeptics are doing with SkeptiCamp. Can their ‘FortFest’ succeed?

BarCamps are simply community-organized conferences where the content is drawn from the attendees themselves. Everyone is asked to participate in some way, either by helping to organize the event or ideally by giving a talk on a topic of their choice. For BarCamps the topics are drawn from the technology community and are often far more eclectic than traditional technology conferences. SkeptiCamps draw from science and the hundreds of subjects of interest to skeptics. A Fortean event would presumably share many of the same topics as a skeptic event, with large doses of weirdness thrown in. (That’s fine. It could be fun.)

However, because these are open events, they can attract both cranks and nuts. The former being those who advocate pseudoscience and the latter being those who suffer from untreated mental conditions. If such a person is in the audience, the situation isn’t much different from our traditional events, where the speaker must deal with their questions. But with open events where everyone is asked to speak, those with an axe to grind or crazy idea to promote may jump at the chance of speaking to a captive audience.

To deal with such situations SkeptiCamp has learned from its awkward and clunky beginnings. Like any event, quality control is required. Traditional events look to the conference programmer to select speakers who can be trusted to provide quality content. That works well for the most part. SkeptiCamps being community-organized do not have the luxury of careful programming, which not only requires an experienced hand but can be time-consuming and expensive as well.

As we’ve found with the first ten SkeptiCamp events, drawing that content from the community can produce substantive and fun events. The challenge of quality remains: how do we deal with a crank who signs up to speak for a 20 minute time slot? If an organizer is aware of the situation, the crank could be denied the opportunity to speak. As a second approach, angry audience members could storm out of the room. But neither of those solutions serves skepticism well. Neither approach increases the critical thinking skills of those assembled. Instead we established a simple rule that diverges dramatically from the lecture-style event where questions are held until the end of a talk. At SkeptiCamp events speakers must take questions from the audience during their talk, even if it means they run out of time to make their important points.

By shifting the burden of quality control from the organizers to the participants, SkeptiCamps demand different expectations of those attending. Audience members must break themselves of their passive habits and instead be watchful of poor reasoning and press for sources of questionable claims. In addition, should the venue allow, participants can research claims using their computers and mobile devices. For the most problematic of speakers, we expect the session can transform into a group discussion where the speaker’s agenda is marginalized.

Can this work for the Forteans as well? It’s a different community with goals that differ from those of skeptics. They attract a different crowd, one that takes great interest in the paranormal. But there are similarities as well.

As skeptics must do at a SkeptiCamp event, FortFest participants must contend with the quality-control issue. For instance, if a speaker displays a photograph of an anomaly, how will the audience evaluate the claims made of it? How will they evaluate the testimony of someone who recently had an experience of the ‘fourth’ kind? What if a 9/11 conspiracy theorist simply plays a propagandistic video during his session?

An “anything goes” atmosphere of uncritical spooky weirdness may be loved by some fortfestors, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t quickly become tiresome for most participants, especially those who question claims on mere authority. Without some boundaries and standards, the best material coming out of the conference will be lost in the noise of mediocrity.

As you might guess, I’d suggest an approach that differs little from that of SkeptiCamp, where FortFest looks to develop critical thinking skills in their participants. It’s not only a win for their community as they gain events that are far more eclectic than the typical paranormal fest, but it stands to be intellectually engaging as well. They might even find skeptics interested and willing to participate.