Skeptic: Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

Dr. Philip Plait
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
Sonoma State University

In this, his first major book titled Bad Astronomy, astronomer Dr. Philip Plait, the founder of the highly acclaimed web page www.badastronomy.com, addresses the most popular astronomical misunderstandings of our age, including: astrology, UFOs, alien abductions, the moon hoax (the claim that we never went to the moon), the moon illusion (why the moon looks bigger on the horizon), standing an egg on end during the vernal equinox, and other astronomical anomalies, such as do all stars look white?, can you read by starlight?, the myth of planetary alignments, will the sun collapse into a black hole?, why Hubble data are withheld for a year, and bad astronomy in the movies and bad astronomy on television. Don’t miss this delightfully entertaining and highly educational lecture.