Also, another bias (or rather, a whole huge complex of biases) that I see as even more problematic is the choice of targets of these "skeptic" luminaries. Looking through the website of their conference and the list of speakers, I see people who attack traditional religion and various low-status folk superstitions, many of whom also promote ideological positions of the sorts that tend to have high status among academics and other respectable intellectuals. I haven't see anything, however, about skepticism towards various falsities and biases that enjoy high status and official approval under the present academic system. Unless we are so lucky nowadays that no such things exist -- a proposition that seems plainly false to me -- I can't help but conclude that the whole enterprise ends up as a farcical parody of "skepticism."