Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This year’s CSICon, the long-running conference of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), will be held in Buffalo, New York, June 11–14, and it will be an incredibly special one. It will observe the fiftieth anniversary of CSI and its publication, Skeptical Inquirer. In anticipation of the big event, I am doing a series of interviews with a selection of scheduled speakers. For this episode, my guest was Richard Saunders, who besides being the prolific producer and host of the internationally popular, long-running podcast from Australia, The Skeptic Zone, is also the chief investigator and former president of the Australian Skeptics. Plus, he can bend spoons the same way Uri Geller does it.
At this CSICon, Saunders will be leading a panel focused on international skepticism, which will include Leo Igwe from Nigeria, Alejandro Borgo from Argentina, Zhang Zhimin from China, and CSI’s representative in Europe, Amardeo Sarma. In this interview, besides discussing the international panel, we also talked about the origin story and development of The Skeptic Zone, as well as many other topics of interest to skeptics—no matter where on our non-flat Earth they live.
Consider attending this year’s CSICon where you will be able to meet Saunders and all the other fascinating speakers and skeptical luminaries who will be attending. To further kindle your interest, you can find the other interviews in my online column. The conference details and registration info are available here: csiconference.org
Also, if you do attend, plan on staying for the Sunday Speaker session, which I will be cohosting with Susan Gerbic and will feature short presentations on a wide variety of topics featuring Samantha Shuster (Prebunking through Parody: The Holistic Quantum Activation Art Expo), Tim Redmond (Building Our Ideological Immunity), Jon Michael (Engaging Constructively with People Who Believe in the Paranormal), Pamela Brunskill (Teaching News Literacy), and Coleman Watts (What Skeptics Can Learn from Conspiracy Theories).
This year’s CSICon, the long-running conference of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), will be held in Buffalo, New York, June 11–14, and it will be an incredibly special one. It will observe the fiftieth anniversary of CSI and its publication, Skeptical Inquirer. In anticipation of the big event, I am doing a series of interviews with a selection of scheduled speakers. For this episode, my guest was Richard Saunders, who besides being the prolific producer and host of the internationally popular, long-running podcast from Australia, The Skeptic Zone, is also the chief investigator and former president of the Australian Skeptics. Plus, he can bend spoons the same way Uri Geller does it.
At this CSICon, Saunders will be leading a panel focused on international skepticism, which will include Leo Igwe from Nigeria, Alejandro Borgo from Argentina, Zhang Zhimin from China, and CSI’s representative in Europe, Amardeo Sarma. In this interview, besides discussing the international panel, we also talked about the origin story and development of The Skeptic Zone, as well as many other topics of interest to skeptics—no matter where on our non-flat Earth they live.
Consider attending this year’s CSICon where you will be able to meet Saunders and all the other fascinating speakers and skeptical luminaries who will be attending. To further kindle your interest, you can find the other interviews in my online column. The conference details and registration info are available here: csiconference.org
Also, if you do attend, plan on staying for the Sunday Speaker session, which I will be cohosting with Susan Gerbic and will feature short presentations on a wide variety of topics featuring Samantha Shuster (Prebunking through Parody: The Holistic Quantum Activation Art Expo), Tim Redmond (Building Our Ideological Immunity), Jon Michael (Engaging Constructively with People Who Believe in the Paranormal), Pamela Brunskill (Teaching News Literacy), and Coleman Watts (What Skeptics Can Learn from Conspiracy Theories).
