November 4th marks the second birthday of the Ottawa Skeptics. It's time to celebrate!

Now that you've finished celebrating, let's look back to see if we met the goals laid out by Barry and Jon on our 1st anniversary.

So how did we do?

When we started Ottawa Skeptics a year-and-a-half ago, we used to get together in Seanna and Steve's family room every couple of weeks to discuss what we wanted to do in the group and what we wanted to accomplish. Some of our original ideas have come to fruition, such as the website, forum and podcast, and some are still on our to-do list.

To facilitate our discussions, one of our first activities was to write a mission statement. It was a group effort, although Seanna and Steve's cats notably refused to take part. I'm not sure whether they were showing bemused detachment or taking a principled stand. Drafting the statement helped us explore our vision and gave us some focus, but it was written quickly and was just based on our intial thoughts at the time.

It has always been our intention to review the statement once we achieved some stability in our activities. Also, since we've received a memo from head office telling us to delete from the statement all references to "The Illuminati" and any mention of animal sacrifice, it's time that we got on with the review.

Well, the month-long festivities are finally winding down.  Given the parades and national press coverage, it's hard to imagine anyone who doesn't know that 4 November marked our first anniversary.  I’m sure everybody has a story of how they celebrated the Ottawa Skeptics Day break with their family, what gifts they gave each other and where they travelled on their time off.
 
At our meeting this month, Jon gave a state-of-the-organization address to mark our accomplishments for the year, but we almost let the month go by without posting about it.  So let's have a self-indulgent look back.
 
A year ago, no one had a clear idea where we wanted to go with the group or how to get there.  All we knew was that we wanted to make a difference in the community, promote science and critical thinking, and meet fellow skeptics in the area.  Some of our initial ideas were to create a website, host a discussion forum, do local investigations, write articles, start a podcast and generally make a name for ourselves.  I remember thinking that, if we could accomplish one or two of those things, we would be doing well.  A year later, we have achieved all of them.

Modern Science is a crowning achievement of human civilization. It has provided the us, for the first time, an objective method for determining the nature of our reality. Before science, people used various other means to understand the world. Before we knew that the stars were giant fusion reactors similar to our sun, it would have been reasonable to guess that they existed to give us messages about our fate. Before the germ theory of disease, it would have been reasonable to try magical methods of medical treatment such as acupuncture or ayurvedic. Before the discovery of evolution by natural selection, it would have been reasonable to assume that an intelligence had designed life. We are privileged to live in a time when we not only understand our world more accurately than our ancestors, but this more accurate understanding has lead to more enriched lives. Astronomy has allowed us to find our place in the universe. We now have medicines that are proven to be effective, as opposed to just exploiting the placebo effect. Evolutionary theory has allowed us to piece together a continuous history of life on Earth. The acceptance and appreciation of science helps not just the human race, but the local community and individuals as well. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees.

Ottawa Skeptics was founded because science is regularly under attack, and we believe it could use more defending. It seems that for every field of scientific inquiry, there is at least one form of pseudoscience that exists to deny or exploit it. It is our hope that this organization can make a difference in our local community, and the community at large, by promoting critical thinking and the scientific method. We want to challenge purveyors of pseudoscience to prove their claims using scientific evidence.

Please enjoy our website, we hope it is informative. If you have any questions or ideas you would like to share with us, then please let us know.