New England Skeptical Society
From NECSS 2013
|
|
| Formation | 1996 |
|---|---|
| Location | |
|
President
|
Steven Novella |
| Website | www |
The New England Skeptical Society (NESS) is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting science and reason. It was founded in January 1996 as the Connecticut Skeptical Society, by Steven Novella, Perry DeAngelis and Bob Novella. The group later joined with the Skeptical Inquirers of New England (SINE) and the New Hampshire Skeptical Resource to form the New England Skeptical Society (NESS).
In 1996 Perry DeAngelis, Steven Novella, and Bob Novella founded the Connecticut Skeptical Society. "The three... formed the society in January 1996 after their love of science drew them into the network of national and regional skeptical societies and they discovered there were none in Connecticut."
As Evan Bernstein tells it, "One night sometime in late 1995, Perry was over [at] Steve's condo, casually flipping through a copy of SI (Skeptical Inquirer). He was reading through the list of local groups, and commented to Steve: 'There's no local skeptics group in Connecticut. We should start one.'" Steve states that he [Steve] took on the majority of the "heavy lifting" but Perry was "right there" the whole time. "He [Perry] was in love with the big ideas, the logistics and the details that was for other people to worry about, which is why Perry and I worked really well together. Because I quickly became the detail and logistic person that made things happen," but he gets the credit for having the original big idea.
The group later joined with the Skeptical Inquirers of New England (SINE) and the New Hampshire Skeptical Resource to form the New England Skeptical Society (NESS).
The NESS was actively involved in investigating claims of the paranormal, Satanism, homeopathy, dowsing, cults and UFOs all have been given attention by NESS. In October 1996, Novella had been on a Ricki Lake show that talked about vampires, one claimed to be a psychic vampire and could drain people's minds. DeAngelis stood up in the audience spread his arms and said "Drain Me". The psychic claimed that it does not work in public. DeAngelis later stated "I had my doubts she could drain a sink." Novella states that he and DeAngelis were guest lectures at a cult awareness conference, NESS arranged for James Randi to also be invited.
...
Wikipedia