The 25 annual NPA and 5th annual CNPS conference at the University of Washington was a resounding success with conference goers all having a fulfilling time. Some new and old faces appeared and it was great to see that the CNPS is alive and well.
With a number of unusually sunny days, the conference was held in Alder Hall on the beautiful campus of the University of Washington with majestic buildings, amazingly large trees, and beautiful vistas of the mountain including a picture-perfect view of Mount Rainer.
Facilities
The conference took place in the Alder Commons open to the public which allowed for ample space for everyone to sit, have their laptops, and watch the presentations.
As was with last year, there were 4 microphones spread around the room for the audience to engage with the speaker and be heard live on Facebook and in our multi-cam video recordings on YouTube.
The banquet was also held in the room making it very convenient for all conference goers.
The revelation of the conference came in a topic that is not physics or cosmology and was given by the young mind of Sandro Guerra talking about his mirror model in biology. The talk was extremely interesting and opened the eyes of many of the conference goers to critical thinking in the area of biology and development. This could open new areas of papers and talks in the CNPS. His presentation is below:
Keynote Speaker
The keynote speaker and recipient of the CNPS Lifetime Achievement Award was Dr. Gerald Pollack. The talk of 90 minutes was well received and the question / answer session all captured on video.
Right after the keynote was a discussion between Dr. Pollack and David de Hilster about Scientific Activism which can be seen below.
Social Evening a Double Success
On Thursday, about 10 people from the conference met at the home of CNPS Chief Scientist Dr. Cynthia Whitney who started off with a question that lead to some amazing stories by all who were there. The question: “how did you get into this? (meaning dissident work)”. James Carter and his wife, Toshi originally from Japan, Bill Beatie a local tinkerer and experimentalist, Ray Gallucci, Duncan Shaw, and David de Hilster swapped stories that were so interesting, David promised to get them to be written and documented here on the Science Woke website. At the end, CNPS president David de Hilster presented Cynthia with her lifetime achievement award which you can see here:
Awards Banquet
The awards banquet of some great Indian food was served to over 20 people who then watched an awards presentation from CNPS president David de Hilster.
The Lifetime Achievement Award went to the Keynote Speaker, Dr. Gerald Pollack. Three other special member awards were also given for prolific, longevity, and leadership. Those awards when to Ray Gallucci (prolific author), Bob de Hilster (longevity in membership), and Franklin Hu (leadership for his leading of the Saturday morning video conferences). Photos and videos follow here.
This year’s conference was a great success in that it brought some long-time members back like James Carter and Bill Beatie, and new faces like Sandro Guerra. And president David de Hilster got a consensus that the CNPS should come up with a list of what is expected to be explained by all new theories.
Next year: east coast to be announced soon.
Thanks to EVERYEONE who made this conference a success including our donors. Without all of you, this would not be possible.