Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[Barry Karr <SkeptInq@aol.com>]

1)  Pseudoscience Fair In Los Angeles
2)  Major Expansion Plans for the Center for Inquiry


 For Immediate Release
 Contact: James Underdown, Executive Director, Center for Inquiry-West
 (310) 306-2847

 Pseudoscience Fair In Los Angeles
 Step Right Up Sucker!

 Los Angeles, CA: Snake Oil cures, perpetual motion machines, and fringe
 theories have been sold to an unsuspecting public for centuries. These
 claims often fall under the category of pseudoscience. Something may be
 pseudoscientific if it uses scientific language and credibility even though
 it defies known laws or theories. A law or theory is scientific only if it
 explains empirical (i.e., provable or verifiable by experience or experiment)
 phenomena and can be tested in some meaningful way. (To be meaningful,
 claims must, at least in theory, be possible to be false.)

 The Independent Investigations Group (IIG) at the Center for Inquiry-West
 will expose many pseudoscientific notions that have been passed down the
 generations, and set the record straight.

 On Saturday, February 24, 2001, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at CFI-West in Los
 Angeles, we will take an in-depth look at pseudoscience by displaying items
 and photos that represent a broad spectrum of these unusual claims. Many
 will be available for the public to try out and examine.

 Speakers from the IIG will discuss the history of some of the claims and why
 they are not science. Some of the topics we will be looking at will include:
 Alternative Medicine, Perpetual Motion, Dowsing, Astrology, Creationism,
 Phrenology, etc. A donation of $3 will cover all exhibits and speakers.

 CFI-West is located at 5519 Grosvenor Blvd., which is 1 mile west of the 405
 Freeway, and ½ block north of Jefferson, near Marina del Rey.

 The entry fee is $3.
 Call (310) 306-2847 for more information.

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 The Center for Inquiry-West is a not-for-profit educational organization
 established "To promote and defend reason, science, and freedom of inquiry
 in all areas of human endeavor." CFI-West is the West Coast home of the
 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
 (CSICOP), publisher of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and for the Council for
 Secular Humanism, publisher of Free Inquiry magazine. Visit us at
 CFIWest.org, or e-mail James Underdown at CFIWestJU@aol.com.

2)  Major Expansion Plans for the Center for Inquiry, by Paul Kurtz

We are pleased to announce that the Center for Inquiry-West has purchased a
fine building in Los Angeles at 4773 Hollywood Boulevard. The Center is
co-sponsored by the Council for Secular Humanism and CSICOP. This building is
two miles from Hollywood and Vine. On one side the famous Griffith
Observatory can be seen on a hill overlooking our site, and on the other side
is another hill containing Basswood Park. This contains a house built by
Frank Lloyd Wright plus a large meeting hall. It provides a splendid vista of
Los Angeles, and has lovely gardens and grounds. The Center for Inquiry-West
is two blocks from a subway station, and a short distance by direct bus line
from to the University of California at Los Angeles campus.

The building is 9,000 square feet on two floors. We have great plans to
completely renovate the Center. There will be a large meeting room for
200-250 people, a library, café, and bookstore on the first floor, and
seminar rooms and offices on the second. The property has space for 70 cars
in an enclosed parking lot and there is additional parking nearby. There is
also space for possible future expansion - of perhaps 6,000 square feet. All
in all, a great find!

The cost of the building is $1.6 million, which the Center was purchased with
a bank loan. This needs to be paid off. The estimated renovation costs will
run approximately $500,000. We wish to recreate this Center for Inquiry-West
so that it is a signature building. In addition to functioning as our West
Coast regional rallying point, the new L.A. Center will also house our new
National Media Center. This will attempt to create programming for TV and
radio and it serve as a resource for rapid media response.

It is only appropriate that we base this Media Center in Hollywood,
California - the symbol of movie and media production. Conversion into such a
Media Center and a three-year operating budget will cost another $450,000.
Thus the approximate total cost of the project will be $2.5 million.
Additional funds will be required for endowment to offset long-term operating
costs. A major fund-drive effort - intended to raise $4.135 million dollars -
will be announced shortly under the direction of Kimberly Development
Services.

This major acquisition culminated a three-year search. Property values have
been escalating in Los Angeles, but we were able to acquire this building
because of a dip in the real-estate market. Some sections of Hollywood have
declined in recent years; there are, however, strong signs that the area
where our Center is located is on the upswing.

The Center for Inquiry-West has been sponsoring many programs for the readers
of Free Inquiry, the Skeptical Inquirer, and our other publications. In
total, Friends, readers, and supporters of the Center, now number 7,000 in
the greater Los Angeles area. The new building will house the Council for
Secular Humanism, CSICOP, and SOS. Atheists United and several West Coast
organizations will use its facilities. The staff includes Jim Underdown,
Executive Director; Jim Christopher, head of SOS; Terry Rozelle; Vaughn
Reese; and Armin Saginian.

We are very enthusiastic about this new project, which will advance the cause
of secular humanism and skepticism enormously on the West Coast.