When I attend these conferences, I don’t always know right away if I’m going to make a return trip, but in this case, I can say that if the organizers do it again next year, I will be in attendance.

Now, I understand that there has been some sniping among a few members of the skeptical community over what Skepticon should rightly be named. Apparently, some think the conference is more of an atheist event, and therefore should not have the implication that it is skepticism-specific included in its name. It seems the worry is that attendees hoping to hear presentations about UFOs or homeopathy or psychics or what have you might be disenchanted with a proliferation of topics focusing on atheism.

All I’ll say about this is, right now, I can’t think of anything I care less about.

Not that I don’t think conveying the right identity or that deploying accurate marketing into the public domain are important. They are. I just think this particular case is something of a non-issue. For many, skepticism and rational inquiry inform atheism, and even if you address only that dynamic at an event, it would still be worthy of being called a skeptic event. And Skepticon did that very thing in good measure. Plus there were presentations, like Amanda Marcotte’s, that dealt with thinking rationally in feminism, and Joe Nickell’s, that dealt solely with investigating claims. The talks would have easily fit in at any skeptic event.